In those fleeting days that remain
by KendrixTermina
Summary: The Doctor muses about all those he had lost his hearts  to over the course of his long life. Multiple ships.
1. 01: Never wanted to Dance

Hi everyone! Welcome to the Kenny's newest fanfic!

As I have searched this site, I found many stories that dealt with all the Companions one after another, one in each chapter or each part of the text etc. However, I have yet to find one dealing with all the love intrests. The reason for this is simple: Those who ship pairing A usually don't like pairing B so much and so on, and then there's those who don't like seeing the Doctor shipped with anyone at all. Now, I can not say to have never participated in a shipping war (I am, for instance, a rabid Shinji/Rei fan), but as far as DW is concerned, I think most of our lovely protagonist's possible love intrests were intresting people. Let's say he has a good taste in chicks.

Therefore, this FF will adress a different pairing in every chapter. So, there should be something for everybody. I hope you all enjoy reading this!

Disclaimer: Me no ownie.

Notes: "Ushas" is what most novels/extra-canonical materials give as the Rani's name.

* * *

**In those fleeting Days that remain**

01: [Never Wanted To Dance]

"And what happened next?"

The young man then known as Theta Sigma looked up from the chaotic mess of wires, crystals and metal he had been tinkering with until now to look into the direction that his best friend had been alluding to, only to revert his slightly confused-looking glance to said friend's fiendishly grinning face.

The two teenagers – Not that they were _actual_ teenagers in the sense of being, well, in their teens, tough the word was fairly accurate in each and every other sense attached to the word, including their appearances – were quite a pair to behold: To a stranger, they might have appeared to be each other's exact opposite. Both of the boys who were working on small pieces of mechanical handiwork with varying degrees of success stuck out like sore thumbs if compared to their classmates, however, they did so in very different ways:

The one who had diverted his friend's attention, a, by the standards of his race, youngster named Koshei, was known to be a refined, extraordinary individual destined to succeed, suave, polite, cultured, yet cunning and always dressed in elegant black robes with the occasional bit of white here and there. He was fairly attractive, as well as an adept conversationalist, so skilled, in fact, that his voice was considered deserving of the adjectives 'hypnotic' or even _compelling._

He had soft, round features surrounded by neatly-cut dark-brown hair, his bangs occasionally slightly parting over his forehead, accompanied by deep blue eyes that seemed to contain an entire universe with in, reflecting a devious, vast intellect and something akin to the fires of the end of the universe lurking in their depths.

His friend, nicknamed Theta Sigma, looked far from refined – He was dressed in the colours of their chapter, all right, nonetheless, many of his fellow Prydonians might have objected to the mismatched patters that contained these colours – He shamelessly wore a loose-fitting robe with diagonal stripes over a plaid tunic, decorated with a broad belt with polka dots – his wardrobe was so hard to look at that few people actually noticed that they were, in fact, red and orange, if he didn't point it out, as the gratuitous blue accents on his technicolored robe made it even more dizzying to look at.

When called out on it, he would always reply some variation of "What's wrong with my outfit, hmmmm? I like my outfit!" That 'hmmm' was a verbal tick of his – another significant one was his habit to randomly say the wrong word when exited, which he argued was just a testament to his intelligence – according to his own words, he had yet to learn how to talk as fast as he could think, so things we're "bound to get mixed up on the way".

This justifications should be more than enough to describe his personality – he was pretty blunt, his eccentric quirks only matched by his idiosyncrasies – Many knew him as a gloomy, grumpy loner with a rebellious streak who was more likely to befriend themore open-minded teachers than his fellow students, best described as wise beyond his years or belonging to the kind of people who were never truly young – in truth, that unapproachable front was only a result of his frustration of living on a planet where a bit of grumpiness and arrogance were almost part of the etiquette, a defence mechanism of a soul that had always dreamed of the stars, yet had been glued to the surface of a planet whose residents hardly considered anything beyond its atmosphere worth knowing about.

Another manifestation of his silent protest were his grades – He had long since stopped caring about them and barely scraped through anything that did not particularly challenge his intellect or catch his personal interest, mocking the system with occasional displays of his _true_ abilities.

However, the way that those who knew him well described his personality diverged greatly from the way it was commonly perceived to be – His best friend Koshei, who had probably known him since the nursery, would characterize him as brilliant, childish and hating to lose, a set of traits that he shared and in fact were what had drawn them together. The teachers he befriended saw great potential in him, and a classmate called Drax, a bubbly, cheerful individual who shared a loose friendship with the inseparable duo, mostly or at least partially motivated by gratitude, as the two resident oddballs diverted the attention that would otherwise have fallen on him, described Theta Sigma as a loyal, honest friend one could place one's trust in despite of his…uniqueness.

Another way to describe him was to call him a short, yet lanky boy with deceivingly delicate looking features and slightly over chin-length pale, sandy-blonde hair.

As the two of them were by far not your average pair of adolescents, being Time Lords and geniuses and whatnot, their conversation topics and activities were not average either: The deep conversations about the meaning of life, the purpose of the universe, sweets and the deep connection linking them had started when the first of them learned how to speak, tough none of them could recall who that was – Both had agreed that it had most likely been Theta Sigma as he _was_ the one with the linguistic talent. It was a deep bond they shared, incomprehensible even to their small circle of friends – one could say that they loved each other, in an abstract, greek-philosopher-ish way, the way one loves a book or a piece of music, viewing each other like a scientist looked upon the universe, with endless fascination, deep admiration and something strikingly similar to never ending horror – each of them knew the other better than he knew himself and would yet perceive him as an unpredictable enigma at the same time.

As kids, they used to run and/or climb across the landscape, playing 'explorer' for a bit, challenging their own limits, and occasionally, each other's. Now, they spent their time working on complicated experiments, sabotaging each other's attempts to do so, or both.

Nonetheless, sometimes they would do the one thing that the vast majority of male youths in the Universe do sooner or later: Talk about girls.

They did not do this very often, since none of them was exactly a natural romantic – Koshei was charming enough to entrance any girl he desired, but they tended to bore him relatively quickly, which meant that they were discarded at a comparable speed – his friend had sometimes berated him for it. In a dark hour, he had replied that he simply wasn't able to find what he was looking for, theorizing that he did not know what that was in the first place – He'd never known his mother and had found himself feeling a certain… restlessness within himself ever since his first day at the academy. Theta Sigma, on the other hand, had pretty much the opposite problem – He was fairly honest and opposed to getting himself a girlfriend just for the sake of having one, and while he was not optimistic enough to think he would one day come across "The One", he did want the person he would give his hearts to be someone special.

Still, intelligence like his was occasionally delivered with a lack of social skills and Theta unfortunately was one of these less-than-lucky recipients – Oh yeah, he was brilliant with any sort of science, but then again, this did not automatically imply that he was as much as good with _people._

When that trampoline woman once suggested that he had never had a girlfriend as school, she hadn't been too far from the truth.

Romantic matters were one of the fields where he was absolutely beyond any help, a hundredfold thicker than the walls of the glass dome surrounding the citadel.

Yes, they did talk about girls, and this was one of those moments.

However, Theta Sigma wasn't quite getting that.

"Well, what do you think happened, hmm? I walked here and started working! Putting up all these cabinets was boring if anything ever was, but it did attract my attention to the fact that we, the oldest civilisation in this Universe, are still using such primitive screwdrivers!

I was about to ask Drax for an idea, as tinkering had always been his forte, but now I've finally found my muse. My project for our tech course will be called "The sonic screwdriver"!

I tell you, in a few years, half of Gallifrey will have one! No more assembling cabinets! I hereby declare that the staff of the Prydonian Academy will have to think of less boring punishments for their students! Tough I must admit that I took some of my inspiration from and useful gadget called 'Swiss army knife' my mother once told me about. She-"

"Theta Sigma, did you just say 'sonic screwdriver'? Who on Gallifrey would want a sonic screwdriver?"

"Me, for example. I mean… cabinets!"

"Never mind the 'screwdriver' bit. That's actually a pretty good idea. Could almost be one of mine. But sonic? Theta, Theta, Theta, if you want that thing to be of any use, I heavily suggest that you use lasers."

"Sonic is safer. What if it blows up on me? I want to keep my hands; they are, you know, pretty handy."

Koshei chuckled. "Good luck… But honestly, can be go back to the interesting part. Now that you mentioned 'hands', you said you were holding hands with our delightful Miss Ushas."

"I wouldn't call it holding hands…"

"From what you said, it sounded as if she was about to kiss you."

"…She was?"

"Theta… tell me you didn't just leave her standing there!"

Koshei didn't have to wait for his friend's reply to know the answer to his question – Theta's dumbstruck expression told him more than enough.

"_Typical…"_

"I guess this explains why she went back to calling me a pest this morning… "

"Yeah…"

"Maybe I should apologize… "

"I don't think that will do much good. You know Ushas. There are few things apart from the contents of her petri dishes that she does regard with anything _but _disinterest at best and contempt in every other case, and I fear that includes me… " Koshei sighed.

"I've always been one of her greatest admirers, you know… " He absentmindedly fiddled with his own handiwork. "Finally a girl who has something in her head, maybe the one who has what I've been looking for all the time, and she just _has_ to think of me of nothing but a source of mild annoyance… "

He straightened himself up. "Well, keep working on your screwdriver-thing. And don't you dare doing it half-heartedly!"

"Why?"

"…Simple. Theta Sigma, you are _beautiful_. An interesting person if there ever was one. That I must admit, I've always envied you a bit. But you could be much more than that. You could be _brilliant._ No, that's not quite grammatically correct. You _are _brilliant. It is time that you showed this to the world."

"You honestly want to tell me that's the reason?" Theta responded, his voice laced in teasing disbelief.

"_One_ of the reasons." Koshei corrected, with a dangerous gleam in his eyes and a thin, fiendish smile on his lips. "You were correct to think me neither that innocent nor that selfless. There _is_ personal gain involved – It's simply _no fun_ without you doing your best. C'mon, no one else around here is a real match for me… well, except maybe Ushas. However, her areas of expertise are clearly chemistry and biology. The tech course is entirely _our_ battlefield. "

"I wouldn't underestimate Drax if I were you."

"Don't make me laugh."

"You're laughing already. And anyway, what are _you_ building there?"

"Oh, you're going to love this. This is something _truly_ useful, another of the many, many uses of dimensional engineering."

Koshei rose from his desk, grabbed whatever structure he had been tinkering with, playfully tossing it into the air just to catch it again and spin it around in his hand.

"Matter compression device. _Pocket-sized_. I still have to think of a fancy name for it, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little demonstration beforehand…"

"….Koshei… didn't you say something about matter _compression?"_ Theta Sigma asked, speaking as well as the giant yellow pillow that was filling the room and pressing him to the wall let him.

"Well, this is certainly not a complete success… but I guarantee you that it would at least be smaller on the inside if you were to rip it open."

"It was average-sized on both in- and outside a few seconds ago…"

"It was _mine_. I can do with my pillow whatever I like!"

"…Yes, whatever you like, as long as _I_ don't end up pressed against a wall afterwards… Be glad that you didn't shrink yourself or anything like that."

"Why? Would you have stomped on me if I had?"

"Koshei, this isn't helping… let's find the door…."

"I think I found the window!"

"Gaaah…." Both boys appeared to be quite relived as they finally felt some fresh air on their faces – This did not change that they had a giant pillow behind them and, more importantly, between them and the door.

"Hey, isn't that Ushas down there?" Theta noticed.

"Yes it is! Hey Ushas!"

"Do you hear us?"

The young woman did indeed hear them.

She was wearing a long dress that, despite its intricate structure, didn't offer the observer's eye much to hang on to, a side effect of its dismal, wan, dark grey colour.

Her long, straight, dark brown hair had a similar effect, heavily hanging of her head like a plant in the process of wilting. Her features were either to strong or too sharp to be considered beautiful, but undoubtedly fitted the rest of her appearance.

She turned around, glaring at her fellow students with nothing but disdain, before simply turning around and leaving.

* * *

Thanks for reading^^ I got the idea for this bit mainly from that little allusion in "Mark of the Rani", a funny comment in 'End of the World', and a few equally funny, screwdriver-related comments in "The Doctor Dances" and "The Christmas Carol". I just added 1 and 1 together XD This turned out to contain waaaay more of the Master than I had planned to, but I don't think anyone minds, since he is awesome. As funny as our perpetually annoyed mad scientist may be, she's only half as funny without the Master's fruitless attempts to flirt with her. (fruitless isn't the word... more like epic fail/epic backfire. Very poor Master, they used to wipe the floor with him back in the classic series.) The rest of this fic will be definitely more serious, tough.

Next up: 02: Susan's Grandmother: [Soundless Midday]


	2. 02: Soundless Midday

Disclaimer: Me sadly still no ownie... :(

02: [Soundless Midday]

The memories lie forlornly in the vast cathedral of his mind, buried beneath a few centuries' worth of thoughts and dreams and feelings, far below happiness, fear and sadness, eternities away from the surface of his conciousness, like a bunch of dusty photographs in the darkest corner of a lightless cellar, ready to be looked at at any given moment, but rarely touched upon.

Half-suppressed, they dance through the inner layers of his mind, burning with blazing light similar to the corona of a sun, subtly influencing his waking self.

His will alone would be enough to make them rise out of the ocean akin to a sunken empire, whenever he wanted to.

Yet, he had to really, really want to, which was not the case very often – He had never been the type to turn around and look back, always in motion, always on the run, constantly busy creating noise to fill the void he had always carried within himself, to numb the pain of not belonging anywhere. It is not disregard, but fear that makes him shun his recollections of these halcyon days; The few glimpses of what lies behind the veil that occasionally sneak into his dreams are enough to make him doubt whether he will be able to bear to look back – He is content to simply feel that these memories are where they ought to be without inspecting them all too closely.

If he just avoided thinking of her, he could keep his old, tired hearts from just falling apart inside his chest.

Sometimes, they betrayed him though, those shattered hearts of his, joyfully sucking in their own destruction along with his blood, straining under the torture they brought on themselves.

Sometimes, he can't help but remember.

In the end, he concludes that it would be impossible to forget her.

How could he possibly forget the mother of his children, the grandmother of his grandchildren?

As his thoughts stray into the realm they had forbidden to themselves, they were forced to step into the infernal rivers of guilt that had kept growing wider and wilder with each day of his travels, having prevented him from venturing into that particular nook of his self.

Her Children and all her grandchildren save for one, that brilliant little girl that had inherited both her extraordinary psychic abilities and his intelligence, her stature and his thick, black hair (in his own case, said hair only showed up after a few regenerations, tough)… he left them all and he never saw them again.

At first, he was more or less a refugee – any attempt to contact his family would have resulted in his capture. After making the hard decision to summon the people he had been running from to undo the damage caused by the War Chief, he had lacked a way to contact them, for the planet they had exiled him to – 20th century earth – lacked the technology to communicate with the other side of the galaxy.

Even after his exile was lifted and his name somewhat cleared, he did not visit his descendants – He was still an outcast and didn't want their affiliation with him to cause them problems. Things had happened before his departure. Things he preferred to forget. He felt that he could go and visit them whenever he wanted, anyway. There were so much things to see!

And he hadn't seen them in such a long time – he didn't have the faintest idea of how to face any accusations or demands they might direct at him.

It was a vicious cycle, biting its own tail like a temporal paradox: With each day he stayed away from them, his insecurities increased, and the more they did so, the less he felt able to face them.

In the end, he had no idea what had happened to them, whether they were still alive or whether they even still considered him a family member.

He honestly didn't know – until he did.

Whatever offspring he'd had left, they died at his very own hands.

It was so wrong – It didn't take a scientist to figure out that parents shouldn't outlive their children.

The only one he still had any hope for was Susan – he'd left her on earth after all.

Still, he couldn't pretend not to hear the little voice at the back of his mind telling him that the Time Lords had never had any problems tracking him and the Master.

Borusa had been able to drag her into the Death Zone all those years ago.

The only sure way to find out was to go to the 22th century and check if she was there, but he could never bring himself to do so – too strong was his fear to find nothing but a heartbroken David whom he would have to tell that his wife would never return.

Thus, he preferred his current state of uncertainty, keeping the possibility of seeing her again locked away like a cat in a box.

He'd had other children, of course – not by other women, the luxury of staying with one long enough to create a living testament to their love had never been granted to him.

Nonetheless, there had been other children, and they, too, had been ripped away from him: He had lost Jenny on the very day of her birth, and while Adric had been more of an apprentice to him, the knowledge that the boy would never get to make use of the wisdom he had tried to share with him had made him feel old and wooden, like a leafless, hollow tree devoid of both colour and life.

To his knowledge, the only remaining person he'd successfully raised was Ace.

Of course, she was not his biological daughter, but that didn't matter to him – She was certainly a legacy to be proud of.

That woman, his first real love, his first wife, however, had left no such legacy behind – everything that had remained of her in this world had been devoured by the fires of the Time War.

Nothing remained.

When he thought of her, it felt impossible to believe that their story had ended in a tragedy, for he was unable to picture her in any other setting than a perfect, soundless midday, as if anything else would be unworthy of her beauty.

He recalled both of the Gallifreyan twin suns enthroned in their respective zeniths, drenching everything below the sky in radiance and euphoria, polishing the scenery of the Time Lord home world to shine, creating vibrant, effervescent colours so lush, that they appeared to have been taken out of a wild, surreal dream rather than reality.

The orange sky shone like a gem and the vermillion grass resembled splatters of blood as it swayed in the joyous wind that had decorated itself with stray silver leaves and blue flower petals like a bride braiding flowers into her hair on the evening before her wedding night.

The gentle warmth carried by the celestial light as it flowed down like liquid gold gently caressed those beneath it, filling their souls with a sense of otherworldly serenity, leaving them wondering whether the wonderful feeling they were experienced even had a name.

And amidst that land of wonders, there she stood, beautiful as a living jewel, allowing the wind to play with her rich, reddish-blonde tresses that made the borderless canopy pale in comparison.

She was wearing a simple, green dress without needless decorations, simply enjoying the happiness that the world gave to her, spreading her arms to feel more of the warmth raining down from above.

He sees himself approaching her, already middle-aged in appearance – She, on the other hand, doesn't appear as anything but a young woman in his dreamscape, and his mind tells him that his memory is not deceiving him – thirteen lifetimes had been promised to her, and what did she get?

Not even enough time to see her children grow into adulthood.

In his sun-drenched recollections of the time before the day on which she was embraced by fate, she still stood there, awaiting him, like an almost translucent, ephemeral flower.

As she sensed his presence, she turned around greeted him with a smile, leaving him stunned by the wild dance of her mane.

He has memories of her facial features, but lacks the strength to summon them from the recesses of his mind, for her full lips surrounded by peachy skin alone are enough to pierce his soul like a sword by forming the outlines of nine simple words:

"When you leave, will you take me with you?"

It was never meant to be.

Notes: He must've had a spouse back of Gallifrey, since he frequently mentions kids/ had an on-screen granddaugther. I kept this mostly vague on purpose.

Next up: Cameca (the lady from The Aztects, for those who haven't heard of her), in Chapter 03: [Think of me]


	3. 03: Think Of Me

Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" belongs to the BBC. I'm just having a bit of fun here.

* * *

03: [Think Of Me]

All he could have rewarded her with was his remembrance.

The thought of truly staying with her and taking her as his bride never even crossed his mind – he had a somewhat sensitive granddaughter to take care of, a couple of friends to bring home and an universe to see – he was simply not made to sit in a garden waiting for the night to claim him, not to mention that said night would have to wait for him quite a while – he might be hard to distinguish from an elderly human, but he was, in fact, a Time Lord and barely hitting middle age.

Fulfilling the promise he had nesciently given her had never been an option, not after he had only just liberated himself from the ground beneath his feet. In later stages of his life, he might have contemplated the possibility of staying, undoubtedly to reach the conclusion that he needed to leave anyway – he had always been and would always be prisoner to his insatiable curiosity, for better or for worse.

Even as he delighted in her eloquence as she found countless ways to forge her affection towards him into brand new words, each of them confirming that the mind that had given birth to them was still as fresh as the taste of virgin water that had just sprung from its source, he was asking her for the knowledge he would need to escape the confines of her world, to once again rip away the binds she could never escape from.

She asked him for a garden of her own, and he just agreed, filled with a heady feeling of freedom, akin to how he imagined the one commonly felt in the last, long since numbered days of an intrepid sinner choosing to bathe himself and his surroundings in fire, all his restraints torn away by the certitude that he wouldn't live to face the consequences of his actions.

If he had planned to keep this promise, he would have had to evaluate his ability to fulfil it, but the only limit that imposed itself on lies was the creativity of their creator, which ironically enabled him to give her the answer that would make her happy.

It was only when he found himself in this bizarre situation that he realized why couples all over the universe gifted each other with softly whispered utterances of the word 'forever' in spite of better knowledge: It was possible for feelings to be true even if the words that carried them were not.

When he had first approached her, it happened more out of interest than anything else; He couldn't have possibly known that he would find the answers to his questions with her.

Coincidentally, she _had_ been the path to that knowledge, which in turn probably made it even harder to believe that his feelings had been sincere.

But they had been.

The universe was crazy like that.

Their first conversation had been enough to convince him that she was _beautiful_ – Her slim face carried a certain air of wisdom, dignity and elegance befitting her position, but it was too long and angular to be considered physically attractive, much less his type – Her main assets were her heart and mind. The latter was a hundred times sharper than her features, yet untouched by the relentless tooth of time; she was a healer, an advisor, a keeper of knowledge – maybe not too far whom what he would have become if he had been born into a civilisation without spaceships, time machines or quick means of escape at its disposal.

"Better to go hungry than starve for beauty" she had said, without a doubt a person of the abstract much like himself, someone who values ideals, thoughts and beliefs over worldly desires. A truly fascinating person.

Here, she was considered to have done enough for her community and was allowed to spend the rest of her days peacefully dwelling in a flower garden along with her contemporaries – which was, in itself, quite a civilized practice one would not have expected to find within a culture that was commonly known for its barbaric rituals, especially given that they lived in a time where most professions entailed physical load which these elderly people would not be able to carry out.

Then again, in everything that concerned life and its stages, there were always huge individual differences – And she, she belonged to the group of people who never stopped to ask questions, observing the world and its secrets with the same open-mindedness and fascination they had exhibited on their very first day.

Of course, being her gentle self, she was content with her life, but he could see how much she would still be able to do if she was in another time or another place.

Since her intelligence was part of what had drawn them together, he shouldn't have been surprised when she saw through his pretences in the end – and yet, having a heart to match her mind, she kindly gave him the aid he requested, knowing very well that she would be speeding up their separation. He could tell that she was in pain, and yet, she helped him to return to the place where he belonged, back into that tomb, back to the tardis, back to the stars, forfeiting her own happiness so he could have his, just like he would have done in her place.

Seeing all that devotion just made his hearts feel heavier than they already did, but it couldn't be helped. He wanted to do something for her, but any attempts to reassure her would have been paper-thin hypocrisy that would only have disappointed her more.

He'd said it before: All he could have possibly rewarded that astonishing commitment with was remembrance, so this is what he promises her this time, offering her something real for the first time.

Her actual reward sounds so small, so half-hearted, that it being true doesn't help all too much.

In the end, her wishes were never meant to be fulfilled – He did not want to break her heart, but he was unstable to stop his own from intertwining them with that string of thorns whose name he never dared to speak, even if he had known the outcome of all this since the very beginning.

The three words stay unsaid, and he prepares his departure.

He affirms her that she will always be important to him, but he dares not to look at her face – If he did, he might begin to think of possibilities that didn't exist and wish for things he couldn't have.

She solemnly makes the correct premonition that everything she had ever known, everything she had ever worked for was doomed from the start and he wishes he could tell her that she's wrong.

Ironically, his own civilization is similarly doomed since the very day he first stepped onto the soil of Skaro, for it was _him_ who trapped the Daleks monsters underneath the ground – it will be him. But he didn't know.

No one had the cruelty (or the decency?) to knock him out of his oblivious bliss.

He wonders if he had stayed here or on Gallifrey if he had known.

The last time he sees her, he tells her to leave for her own good, and she reveals that what brought her here and made her stay was her wish to see him once more, to stay at his side.

And she looks so pure, so resigned, that he can't find his words before she considers her request denied and turns away, leaving but one single request, which she then gravely repeats: "Think of me. Think of me."

When he leaves, he leaves her brooch where it belongs, and turns to his spaceship to leave this doomed civilization behind.

This one is a fixed point and it would really raise his spirits if he would come across one that isn't.

But he can't.

He can't just leave the token she gave him behind, as if none of this ever happened.

He's sorry for whatever grave robber, archaeologist or museum owner who was supposed to eventually get his or her hands on that brooch, but he can't help but take it.

Remembrance is all he can give her, so fulfilling her request to think of her is all he can do.

He takes the brooch and keeps it – It still lies in a room in the depths of the TARDIS where it has been joined by innumerable mementos, tokens and keepsakes in the meantime – Susan's old shoe, the ring that had been a gift from his mother and hadn't fit anymore after his first regeneration, Rose's forgotten jacket, and, to name a recent addition to the collection, Liz 10's mask.

From time to time, his eyes happen to meet that brooch, and he remembers.

He _had_ to take it with him.

Because in the end, _everything_ is doomed from the start: Civilizations, people, relationships.

But if they're there, if they're real and people choose to remember them and let themselves be shaped by them, it can't be as if nothing happened.

* * *

Next up: Jo Grant, in Chapter 3: [Champagne]


	4. 04: Champagne

Disclaimer: I obviously don't own DW. If I did, would I be posting stuff on a FF site?

* * *

04: [Champagne]

Sometimes, the true value of things remains hidden from view until they are gone for good.

He kept finding that truth over and over again, written all across every nook and cranny of creation, this time reflected in a glass of champagne.

The beverage was contained in translucent, thin glass that he would probably have been able to break apart without any real effort, making him think of the deceivingly fragile-looking frame he would be seeing no more, the small, transient human body that much like the fragile vessel in his hands, did not match the essence that was contained within.

The golden colour of the liquid made him think of the hair he had just seen for the last time, soft and shining, like a field of wheat swaying in the wind prior to the time of harvest, after the sun had burned away the green it once held, just to replace it with its own, pale taint.

Within the drink, innumerable bubbles of carbon dioxide entered into existence at the borders of the glass, using every little grain of dust, every ever so small irregularity in the smooth surface of the glass as a foothold to grow in both volume and diameter, until they were ready to fly away, just like the golden girl ready to depart on her journey to turn this word into a better place, ready to fly into the world that to any freshly-engaged girl, much more so to one an easily-impressed mind like hers, must appear as golden as the contents of this glass that was so much bigger than the little bubbles within, that kept arriving at the surface uncontrollably, painfully resembling the ideas and words arriving at her mouth.

And oh, this drink would probably throw his body into the degree of disarray that this girl had caused in his laboratory, but its charming fragrance tried its hardest to make him accept it, much like her – she had certainly failed to land a big impression on him when they first met; Top be honest, he saw her as a mild annoyance not even fit to serve him tea, thoroughly incompetent, throwing everything into chaos by acting without thinking, her good intent remaining mostly without consequence.

But she had proven him wrong, almost shocking him with her inner strength and those escapology skills of hers, making him doubt whether the Brigadier had truly failed to realize what kind of assistant he needed.

The science-y parts of the work had, after all, always been his domain, perhaps a helping hand with other qualities was… entirely adequate.

When the Master had called his threat to initiate a time ram and possibly blowing both of them into oblivion a bluff, for he would never harm his companions, Jo had finished the Job for him with little concern for her own life. She had even taught herself to withstand his best enemy's hypnosis, _by annoying the hell out of him_, no less.

He would've loved to see that.

Even some of her clumsier attempts to 'help' him were, as he had to admit now in their hour of parting, just further testaments to her drive to prove herself, to that inner strength that shined in her eyes, contrary to what the rest of her appearance and her bubbly behaviour suggested.

It was ironic, yet bittersweetly fitting that her going forward in his beliefs was what eventually led her away from him.

She would… make an excellent protester.

Without a doubt.

There she was, his innocent, yet determined Jo, getting her fairytale ending with her knight in shining armour… or a modern equivalent.

Here he was, having a 'toast to the happy couple' with everyone else in this room, which was filled with music, singing, dancing and talking and delicious happiness that made him feel incredibly lonely, knowing that he no longer belonged here, if he had ever belonged anywhere.

He emptied his glass of champagne with one single gulp, and what tasted like the exhilarant nectar seasoned with liquid joy by glittering angels, held the flavour of a celestial creature's divine tears and pain for him as he swallowed it along with a bright swirl of hypocritical, yet paradoxically honest heaven piercing joy and deep depression that made him feel as ancient as he was, his face but a numb mask, drained and old, every single, half faded bruise he had incurred while tinkering with his console strangely visible on his suddenly useless hands.

What's with that hurt reaction?

Why was he feeling _like this_ now?

When had this happened?

He could not have named a moment where it started. One Day, she arrived at his doorstep and introduced herself, and what had followed seemed like but one single, long, bad action movie that was paced way too fast. Somewhere, somewhen in this long and crazy story of reptilian creatures, murderous plastic chairs, tides of peace and war, the occasional Dalek and old friends whose hands he almost shook, forgetting for a split second that they were enemies now, he had done a foolish, needless thing and now he was feeling the consequences of it.

He had begun to take far too much delight in that girl's backside.

And the rest of her, for that matter.

He'd only realized it _now, _just _now_, when he found himself drinking champagne meant for a wedding, and yet, the thought of telling her did not cross his mind once as he helplessly alternated between looking at the young activist and his soon-to-be-bride, watching him propose to her.

He gently said his goodbyes, handing her a present to see her eyes shine in excitement one last time, even agreeing to visit her and asking for a piece of wedding cake he'd never come to claim, wanting to get over with the painful goodbye as fast as possible, before the initial numbness caused by the sudden loss subsided and left him with his hearts ripped wide open.

He watched as her fiancé led her away, beaming with happiness, and decided that he had to go.

It would not be fair to let her see the single tear wandering down his face, so he turns and runs, like he does it far too often when confronted with a situation he cannot deal with.

The drive to leave feels almost like a primal urge.

Oh, he faced monstrosities, mad scientists and escalating conflicts that would drive others mad, but these things weren't that difficult for him.

No. What overburdened him so much that he could not help but run away were the confusing feelings caused by a simple girl, by the absurd power she had over him without ever knowing.

A picture of hers remains on his nightstand for a couple of years, where he shoots it a longing look once in a blue moon. After one less than successful regeneration, Peri Brown comes to check on him in his room, only for him to berate her with a somewhat melodramatic speech accompanied by extravagant hand gestures.

She asks who the girl on the picture is and the name ends up saving her life on Karfel.

Later, much later, he meets Sarah Jane again and she departs with one little allusion to flames long extinguished. He is honestly surprised and believes her to have hidden it quite well, until Martha departs with a similar allusion – then, he comes to the logical, very obvious conclusion that he is about as thick as the fog on a November morning.

He can't stop the question of 'who else?' from emerging in his mind – and recalls that Jo once referred to her later husband as 'a younger version of you'.

It just renews his pain, for resigning to an investable fate such as the inherent infeasibility of an impossible thing is not half as devastating as having missed a real, existing chance that was there. Having to cope with the loss of several other innocent, yet inwardly strong blonde women at the time, it only adds to the pile of things weighing on his desperate soul.

When he, albeit unintentionally, finally fulfils his promise of coming to see her sometime, he's older and wiser, the old wounds long since healed.

He had recently found himself again in the situation of wanting someone he couldn't have – it mostly tended to be the other way around, and yes, in the meantime, he _had _become aware of the unwanted attention he tended to attract, however, this time, the bride did not let him depart from the wedding after she had her fairytale ending, at least not without her and her husband, and he couldn't help but think of Jo as he provided the two of them with an intergalactic honeymoon.

However, he did not let his feelings interfere with their reunion.

After all, both Martha and Sarah Jane, both of whom he still loosely kept in touch with, which was quite a lot by his standarts, had settled into the role of the close, reliable, trusted friends he had always seen them as, setting the unrequited feelings he had failed to see aside.

He should be able to do the same for them to have some untroubled, easy-going chats about the past.

She tells him to watch out so he won't get in trouble with the Time Lords.

His smile breaks, but he does not let _that_ detail spoil their reunion either and doesn't tell her what happened – Once again, he chooses not to bother her with his personal anxiety, and leaves to pick up the Ponds.

The three words stay unspoken.

He smiles sadly at the irony– back then, he would have never imagined that he would one Day find himself desperately missing the planet he once ran away from – in fact, he used to think of his fellow Time Lords as little more than a nuisance.

Yes, the true value of things definitely remains hidden from view until they are gone for good. He wonders why it even surprises him.

That glass of champagne should have taught him that lesson a long, long time ago.

* * *

So, there it is! Next up, Chapter 05:[Corruption], starring the wonderful Romanadvoratrelundar!


	5. 05: Corruption

Disclaimer: Me =/= owner of DW

Notes: The rating was raised because this chapter contains the Time War and it's NOT pretty. The second half of this chapter explores how Romana died (We all hope that she lives, but that's more a plot for a long multichapter fic - a short fic works better with DRAMA muahaha. And I've wanted to do something Time War related in a long time.) I hope this chapter manages to suit the hight expectations...

* * *

05: [Corruption]

In the end, they would say that he had corrupted her.

Of that, he had no doubt.

What did it matter to them that taking her along with him hadn't exactly been his own idea?

After all, he was the renegade oddball and she was, at least until a relatively short time ago, what would have been considered a gifted, promising exemplary citizen of Time Lord Society and this was all that mattered to them.

_Of course_ he had corrupted her.

Just a few months, maybe a year ago, she had been aware of what a conduct becoming a Time Lord consisted of, or, as the rest of the Universe would probably put it, she was haughty, icy, imbued with an (un)healthy dose of arrogance and completely convinced that she didn't need to see the universe to know more about it than the largest chunk of its population, that there was nothing left to learn for a Time Lord anywhere in the universe(or rather, a Time Lady, more precisely, _her_) after she had finished the academy back on Gallifrey.

The concept of 'fun' seemed to go above her head, and she _dared_ to touch his TARDIS console, even going as far as using the blasted _blue stabilizers_, much to the annoyance of the elder Time Lord who was still in denial about their very existence.

She looked down at him, probably considering him little more than a scatterbrained old eccentric, not to mention her academic inferior – back then at the academy, he had tried to get the minimum score on purpose (trying a little to hard on his first attempt) and now, it was coming back to bite him – That he, unlike her, possessed an actual _doctorate_ didn't seem to bother her much.

And if all that hadn't been annoying, humiliating and hindering (not to mention humbling since she _did_ indeed pass her TARDIS driving licence test and was definitely _not_ making up her level of expertise, actually making him doubt the quality of his own handiwork a few times) enough, she actually insisted on being called _Romanadvoratrelundar_!

What on Earth, or rather, Gallifrey had her parents been thinking?

He couldn't possibly have a companion called Romanadvoratrelundar, if he had to try and properly pronounce that abhorrent linguistic travesty each time he wanted her to hand him a tool, whatever doomsday device he was working to defuse would probably blow up in his face before he had finished talking. Admittedly, his own name wasn't that much better, albeit for different reasons, but unlike her, he did _not_ expect people to use it.

In short, she was everything he had hated about Gallifrey condensed and compressed into the shape of one young woman.

But that's just what she was, a _young woman_. She was merely shaped by the world she had grown up with, and unlike him who had hopelessly failed at that task, she found a way to adapt to that world, to deliver what was expected of her. She was simply acting how she thought she had to act if she wanted to be respected and accepted, reminding him of the façade of harsh grumpiness he had once projected around himself just to get by on his so called homeworld.

As he realized very quickly after seeing her reaction to the face of danger, the way he could almost hear the wheels in her head turning like a quick, well-oiled machine fresh out of the factory, she was in no way limited, obstinate or truly arrogant, merely a bit… inexperienced and trying to do what she thought she ought to, still very much an innocent girl at heart and soul.

Not that 'innocent' should be confused with 'harmless' or 'ineffective' – She undoubtedly _had_ the intelligence she claimed to possess and knew how to use it, a skill he'd always had great respect for, even if he found it in his enemies, and it was truly nice to have someone around that would actually _understand_ the complex technological terms he'd occasionally throw around – not that he blamed any of his former companions for not getting all of it, he was perfectly capable of doing that kind of things on his own, no thank you.

However, that didn't mean that he didn't appreciate Romana's help… a bit.

Technically, even more than just a bit. Perhaps even a lot.

Not that he'd admit it.

He didn't want any of those who came before her an injustice as each of them had been brilliant in his or her own ways – Both Liz and Sarah Jane had been his equal in more ways than one, but he hadn't travelled with anyone who had rivalled him in the field of analytical, somewhat numerically measurable intelligence since that fateful trip to the Medusa Cascade or possibly even his little ventures through the scarlet fields and ashen mountains of the place he grew up in with the Master at his side.

Until he met Romana.

He hated to admit it, but her improvements to the design of the sonic screwdriver were astonishingly useful.

No one likes to swallow a humble pie, much less in a field one normally excels at- nonetheless, he _did_ depart into space to learn new things, didn't he?

As he travelled with Romana, he came to the conclusion that they were actually pretty much alike at the cores of their beings, and he couldn't help but develop a strange sort of fascination as he watched her find out who she really was, free of the confines of Gallifrey telling her who she was supposed to be.

She had only heard of the things her fellow Time Lords dismissed as not worth seeing, never touched them with her own hands.

There was no way that a being like her could react with cool, haughty indifference to the miracles that lay hidden in the sky, scattered amidst the empty darkness, those wonderful, sparkling, important islands of being in the sea of nothingness.

So it came that he watched her indifferent expression melt into a jaunty smile and her sharp, strict-looking features into rounder, softer shapes on which her avid expression no longer looked out of place, her eyes reflecting the glittering lights covering the canopy that opened before her as if it had been waiting for her to step into it.

Before any of them really noticed, the ice around her heart shattered into one thousand coruscant pieces and allowed her to become the widely smiling free spirit she had always been meant to be in some corner of her hearts.

It was the unparalleled temptations of the stars that had brought about her so called 'corruption', not him.

He did not have such kind of power.

Oh no, he hadn't really changed anyone in his life – he had only helped them to become what they had really been all along, to see the potential within themselves, to understand why they had fascinated him so much.

Contrary to what their fellow Time Lords may think, he hadn't corrupted Romana – He hadn't done anything at all. It was all her.

Her, the person she had been born to become.

And as such, she no longer longed to return to the confines of her now discarded, frosty chrysalis, oh no, she was going to do what she had been made for: She would spread her wings and fly, preferably at his side – and he gladly showed her the universe and introduced her to its secrets, only to see her admire their beauty with the same glee as he did, smiling the same, mad smile because of it, creating the same, convoluted formulas to measure it, delighting in their mathematical beauty just as he did, seeing the world the way he did.

She was the first person since the Master to give him the feeling that he was made to meet them, to be so very alike to him, to understand what he was thinking in such a way.

And she was much more than that – Because unbeknownst to either of them, a very different kind of ice had broken between them.

He had described her as pretty and attractive on various occasions, not with _that _sort of intent on his mind, but because she _was_ – She had been good-looking when he first met her, exuding an ice-queen-ish aura in those white dresses of hers, but that second incarnation of hers, with that face she had copied off someone else on a whim was quite a remarkable sight to behold – and she had to make herself _blonde_ of all things. (He didn't approve of such practices, as he felt that regeneration was to be taken seriously – still, he kept wondering how she _did_ that, he could barely manage to finish the process with two arms and two legs, and not without being struck by _at least_ moderate aftereffects… Most of his fellow Time Lords seemed to be able to initiate or stop the process at will and appeared to have some moderate control over what they would look like, but to turn oneself into an exact carbon copy of someone else needed an impossible degree of control, and to _try out different forms… _Theoretically, that should be possible within the first few hours, but to actually do it, Romana certainly had to be a particularly talented individual – which was perfectly possible if there were remarkably clumsy examples like himself running around. As with all biological processes, there were some individual differences – He was probably a bit envious that he could not get his new mirror image to please him )

They had huddled close against each other to be transmatted, got stuck in caves together and even went to Paris, without him really thinking of the implications of these things – He had been busy with other less than pleasant, potentially world-threatening issues.

He'd even turned up in the control room clad in nothing but a red towel to deposit a case of tool tools there, simply because the bridge of the TARDIS used to be between the shower, the cupboard where he kept some of his tinkering supplies, and the wardrobe, completely oblivious to the causes of Romana's embarrassed reaction.

However, just because he was too thick to see what was in front of his eyes, the distance between his eyes and the elephant in the room did not shrink.

It was obvious to anyone but themselves.

The less-than-sane, adventure-hungry smiles they shot each other, the way the air in between them spontaneously electrified itself, the particles that made up their being attracting each other, just one volt away from discharging themselves in the shape of a lightning bolt connecting them, the playful way they challenged each other's intellects, the little tasks he gave her, just to see the sheer beauty of her working mind that would immediately output the answers like a calculator.

All these looks and little gestures, just small, yet countless things, deep understandings that had no needs of petty, confusing, one-dimensional things like words, hindered and yet sweetened at the same time by the innocence of two children running through a meadow that formed the border of their small little world and, to them, was as wide and as broad and as endless as the sky encasing it, going on and on and on in every single direction, giving them a feeling of absolute freedom as they spread their arms like the wings of a newly liberated butterfly, nothing but little dots in the endless fields of green… or red, depending on which part of the universe you found yourself in.

Their endless meadow was the cosmos itself, and the cosmos was black anyway.

The most evident sign, however, was the light sense of ease that accompanied them wherever they went, the certainty of having found the place where one had always belonged and the person to share it with.

At this point of his life, he had been fairly content with traveling on his own, but the silent, lonely nights always kept at least a tiny spark of their horror. He was well aware that Sarah Jane, Leela and all the other humans he had known before couldn't possibly have stayed forever, and in back then still rare moments of silent darkness, when they had been asleep, he had wept to have what he feared to loose – they were so horribly fragile and transient.

Things were different with Romana – her being another Time Lord was not one of the things that had drawn them together, he stuck out on Gallifrey as much, or even more than he did anywhere else, and sometimes was not sure whether he still considered himself one of the Time Lords at all, having never felt all too connected to them, their society or their world.

Nevertheless, her being of the same race meant that she had a comparable life expectancy – She was great deal younger than him and still in her second incarnation, she would probably outlive him by millennia.

She could _stay_, remain at his side until he had finally tired of this world.

And maybe, just maybe, given enough time and one or two of the invaluable life lessons hidden amongst the galaxies, he might finally be able to speak those three words for the first time in his life.

But as they were slowly becoming aware of their budding wishes, either fate or the High Council of Time Lords had already long since decided that they were not to be granted.

The end of their joint journey kept steadily catching up with them, sewing their footsteps together until they obliviously tripped over the point of no return, unaware of the speed at which those untroubled days were running through their fingers.

They wanted her back.

And there was nothing he could do – they had decided to tolerate him for now, but they had little problems with entering his life and forcing him to do their dirty work whenever they pleased. They could find him easily and they could find her – and they'd be way more eager to find _her_ than they ever had be to find him – he was a crazy old man, but she was a until recently 'virtuous' young girl – they would assume that she was a victim, that he had corrupted her, that she needed to be saved.

She was completely capable of saving herself, but telling them that would be no use.

The Time Lords demanded her back, and he suddenly found himself wishing she was human so they'd leave her alone.

He did not want her to return to Gallifrey, he wouldn't want that either – but it was already out of his hands. All he could do was to drive the TARDIS sloppier than he usually did, and to his own surprise, he succeeded.

At the parting of their ways, as the seemingly last knot intertwining the strands of their fates unravels, he does his best to govern his very blatant initial shock, for he knows that it's either E-Space or Gallifrey for her, and he knows all too well what he would choose in her place. He makes it quick and hands her K9, as unable to bear goodbyes as he has always been.

Like many before her, she departs to follow the beliefs he had taught her, to grow her own TARDIS and do exactly what he has done for a long time now – travel the universe and liberate the oppressed.

Too bad that they won't be traveling the same universe.

When he assures Adric that "She'll be superb", his voice doesn't sound as confident as he wants it to be, all four syllables tainted by the sudden, devastating realization that he'll never see her again.

Or at least that's what he thought.

Oh, if he only had been right.

Maybe Davros had been right and it was all his fault, maybe all this is his punishment for being such a horrible person that ripped ordinary people out of their safe, normal lives.

He did that.

He made her the sort of person that would not simply rest on her laurels after liberating the Tharils and aiding them in building a peaceful society.

Yes, she had made E-Space a better place, but there was another locality she had been neglecting: Her homeworld, Gallifrey.

She returned to the planet she had run from, not in an act of surrendering, but with the firm intention to make it a better place with the skills she had now, and thus, in order to turn her vision into reality, started a political career.

Everything went well for Romana – until the war came, the most incomparable, most gruesome of all wars, striking from the clouds like a harpy to teach the Time Lords fear like they've never known before.

In their desperation, they preferred the legend they grew up with to a mortal, if determined and righteous woman and in choosing their leader, inevitably chose their future as well, for it was not the onslaught of the Daleks, but the return of Rassilon that sealed the fate of Gallifrey.

All those myths of his power madness, his treachery and insanity that could not be ended, only contained, they were true, and the Doctor had been young and naïve to assume that he lured those interested in immortality into his cruel games to save his beloved planet from those who coveted eternity – He merely wanted to get rid of any possible Rivals so he could reclaim his planet at any time he pleased.

The people of Gallifrey had lived in peace and stagnation for so long, that they had forgotten that history is always written by the victors – And who had lived to become a legend? Who had named every single dangerous artefact on the planet after himself?

What sort of ego would one have to possess to create all those sinister items and then have the audacity to label those heralds of death and bloodshed with his very own title?

He would not accept anything short of the total annihilation of the Daleks – not even dying in the attempt to do so was possible for him, and whoever spoke of compromises could as well have asked for a violent death.

What followed was an endless, senseless cascade of death the Doctor felt helpless to stop.

In the strife, he encountered someone he had never expected to see again – and he wasn't referring to Leela whom he found sitting atop the person in question, holding a knife in her shaky, bloody hands.

"If Andred should die… if he does not regenerate…" her voice revealed that she was close to tears, but never lost its streght and vitriol. "…I'm going to hunt you down and find you, you damned bastard!" She gives the man below her a powerful punch to the face that might as well have fractured his jaw. "And then, I'm going to kill you! If you're alive now, then only because I'm keeping a promise to an old friend of mine!"

He hears her voice from afar, but fails to arrive before the man she nailed down shoots her dead, moving his intangible, immaterial arm straight through the leg she had been restraining him with.

Her blood sprays out of her back and splatters her killer, who then carelessly pushes her corpse away from him.

He dryly grins at the Doctor, and the two men recognize each other instantly.

The Valeyard.

He taunts him, telling him that he always hated this world and should be glad to see it burn. He tells him to look deep into himself, to reach for the intangible presence of joy that would one day fill his frame.

"I am you, and because I am you, I know. Within me, there has always been that feeling that I never belonged anywhere. I've always hated Gallifrey. It was little more than a prison to me. And that's why I destroyed it."

"D-destroyed?"

"Many years ago, I was given the opportunity to wipe out the Daleks. Yet, I did not, and I carelessly watched as countless people died. Because of my own decision. Because I let them live. Those Dalek embryos hadn'd done anything yet as the time, so my useless morals prevented me from killing them, but my guilt has never left me. So I decided that I needed to be punished. And it would be only fitting if I faced my punishment at the hands of the Daleks, don't you think? So here I am. Punishing my pitiful self. I tried to kill myself before, to prevent this from happening, to break free of you and become a real being, not just an aspect of you. To make my potential existence a definite one. But I refused to die as I deserved it. An old friend of mine intervened. I never even thanked him, I think I shall punish myself some more, this time by facing the truth: It was me who told the Daleks that I've been sent to destroy them. It was me who confessed my sins, but not just my personal sins, oh no. The Daleks always were after me, but they did not yet see the other Time Lords as a threat to them – They had planned to exterminate them eventually, but they weren't too high on their list – until I told them of everything. To destroy the planet that confined me, the planet I hate. The people who executed me once. The people that cast me out and conspired against me several times. The people that kept annoying me with their silly little missions. _The people who didn't allow me to stay with Romana._ They are stagnant and limited anyway, what change does exterminating them make?"

He is shocked beyond words, suddenly more aware than ever that this evil is his own.

The Valeyard throws himself into the mouth of a monstrous Skarosian monstrosity created by the Daleks to attack from beneath the ground as soon as it breaks into the building, crying tears of joy as he falls towards his death.

As he clutches the lifeless body of the savage warrior who had been some sort of student and at the same time, a trusted, reliable companion to him, he understands.

Everything and anything he has done until now, all his travels, his entire life had only led to this war. He had always hoped to avoid violence and preserve life wherever he could, and yet, he had always been destined to cause the greatest agglomeration of death in all of creation.

He wants to die.

Because he's also understood another thing: There is only one single way to end this senseless waste of life. Only he can end this absurd banquette of blood that was progressively turning the entire universe into a slaughterhouse. He now understands the self-hatred embodied by his darker self, understands the guilt that caused him to take the form a a court prosecutor, because he know what has to be done, and he has to resist the impulse to chop off his hands pre-emptively to keep him from doing what he's about to do.

He has to. He will not allow any more innocents to get involved in this. This is the least he can do to honour Leela and all the others who lost their life in this hell.

He sees Romana one last time, and contrary to all logic, she's still loyal to him.

They set out to collect the Moment, and they succeed.

Oh what a victory, it disgusts him to even call it one.

The ancient artefact is a small, orange, crystalline sphere that glows softly from the inside.

Its inner layers move in a mesmeric way, almost as if it had a life of its own and it bizarrely resembles the planet it's meant to destroy.

Romana paid a high price for the cursed thing – Only the Doctor leaves the ancient temple it was hidden in on his feet, carrying the woman he once loved across the blasted ground of a dying world.

A single TARDIS exploding is enough to undo the entire history of the universe, a single Dalek capable of starting the chain of events that would create an entire empire capable of disintegrating all of reality.

Needless to say, the Time War was _messy_.

Rassillon and his lot sat far back in their little citadel with their eyes turned away. They would be the last ones to bleed and Romana, who had always sought to end the fighting, lay dying in his arms.

Her face was literally, physically cracked like glass, with several 'shards' missing and various cracks extending all over her otherwise normal-looking, soft body. The physics-defying sharp edges formed by her relentlessly bleeding skin showcased only a little of the reality-shattering horrors she and the Doctor had endured, and there was yet no telling of the impact that they would have on her mind.

She was delirious at best, barely even conscious most of the time, eying both the Doctor and the inferno around her with a gaze that contained no recognition.

There had been painful moments of clarity, one where she had accused him of not preventing this and tried to strangle him in her unstable, nightmarish state, and he'd just let her, partially because it took significantly more strength to snap a Time Lord's neck than her weak, pale hand were able to summon up, partially because he felt he deserved it.

In other lucid moments, she had assured him that the atrocity he had planned to commit was the only way out, with a shocking clarity and awareness of what was to happen and then there had been a time where she had asked him where his scarf was – this form also had wild brown curls and deep blue eyes, and she was far too torpid to properly perceive his face.

The world was screeching around them, the structure of time itself groaning with the strain the fighting put on it. The ground was reduced to burned earth, and even the air itself seemed roasted, little rocks floating in it as if they were light as feathers.

Any vegetation was reduced to the carbon molecules serving as their base material, any water had long since evaporated – the only bodies of liquid were rivers of molten metal and stone. Where the ground was not reduced to burned earth or in the process of decaying into its chemical components, it had condensed into glass-like, slippery obsidian.

The very sky shines in a bright, bloody red, the space-time continuum itself heating up from the battles that were, had been, and would be carried out in it. The stars were but overshadowed, black dots, some of them having collapsed into black holes or decayed into doughnut-shaped compounds that transcended the logos of this world, and all across the sky, there was a fissure, torn wide, wide open, it's edges rolled together like scrolls, the eerily distorted stars still visible on them, and beyond the fissure, there was even more warped reality, battling spaceships folding themselves into the oddest directions and blinking in and out of existence, occasionally joined by unperceivable monstrosities.

Their path was littered with mountain-high piles of burned out Dalek shells, the occasional crashed spaceship and hopelessly mangled Time Lord corpses – as impossible as it seemed, most of these people had died of clean Dalek Laser shot wounds.

It was just that properly killing a Gallifreyan wasn't that easy a task which could only be accomplished by what would be considered ridiculous overkill on any other victim – or just by shooting them until they stop coming back to life.

That many regenerations in a row were bound to have horribly misshapen results – Some of the pitiable individuals still twitched, alive, but unable to move as much as a finger.

The Doctor had already relieved several of them of their misery, knowing very well that they would be raised anew very, very soon.

Another common sight were time fossils, unintelligible footprints of battles that had now never happened. Time and space bended and cracked around the abominations marching across the landscape, and the stench made that of hell sweet and pleasant by comparison.

He looks at the limp form in his arms.

_She was so young. _

Proving once again what she was made of, she regains consciousness and she refuses to follow his instructions to run away and even insists to walk on her own without any help from him.

She tells him that she's almost two-hundred years old and doesn't need him babysitting her.

He'd cry if he wasn't out of tears.

On their way to his faithful TARDIS to embark on what should be their final trip, the last journey to the place where they plan to end everything, they cross paths with the Hordes of Travesties. It seems that they're not even allowed one single, final voyage together.

She notices the danger before he does, and offers herself as distraction without a moment's hesitation.

He wants to take her place, but she merely reprimands him for being silly.

She clearly tells him that he has greater chances of succeeding with their ungodly task and knows it very well, pointing out that he's not the boss of her and that there was way more at stake than just her life, and he, having finally experienced the lessons of life he was hoping for, does what he failed to do all those years ago in at the doorway to E-Space: He grabs her by the shoulders and plants a kiss onto her lips before he departs, knowing very well that this is his last chance.

The arrival of the abominations prevents either of them from speaking the three words, or any other words for that matter.

They rip her to shreds.

Eleven times in a row, tearing her flesh apart much faster than it could mend itself.

He does not see her defiled remains, and he doubts that he would have been able to tell her corpse apart from any of the others.

At the time of her Death, he is already struggling with himself to make the hardest decision in his entire life. His thoughts wander back to the faraway past when the "Keller Machine" showed him his greatest fear – a burning world. His _own_ world burning.

At that time, he had seen his adopted homeworld burning, as he had then recently seen a parallel version of it reduced to ash. Now, he was about to see his _native_ homeworld reduced to glowing rubble.

Feeling an almost surreal light-headedness, he just presses the button.

He had been fully aware of the fact that his construct would most certainly explode on him – in fact, he had not actually planned on surviving.

He is reduced to a charred lump of flesh, but apparently not charred enough: Whatever was left of him was still capable of regenerating.

He wakes up, staring up at the remains of a planet scattered across the sky.

The image instantly burns itself into the back of his skull.

He stumbles into the TARDIS and collapses.

She brings him to the only rock in the universe he remotely wants to see right now.

It is only after he spends hours under a public shower to get rid of the stench of blood that he begins suspecting that he may be imagining it.

He burns his old, blood splattered outfit and wraps himself in the colour of mourning, unable to even look at the bright colours and mismatched patters he used to love.

The leather jacket properly grows on him later, (It's a fan_ta_stic jacket after all!) but the moment he chose it, one of his main concern was for it to be devoid of colours and patterns that could make him think of her voice, asking him in bewilderment where his scarf had gone.

Just wearing black isn't going to shut up her equivalent in his nightmares, tough.

Even someone as skilled as her would have ended as a tangled mess after 11 regenerations in a row, and his memory of the heavy disfiguration that the Master suffered after such an ordeal fuels his fantasy.

Mix in all the guilt and loneliness that had been troubling him at the time and you end up with the tangled, warped, oozing mess of disfigured limbs and twisted flesh that kept haunting him in his dreams for the first months after the war.

Her face remained mostly untarnished, perhaps his subconcious' way to tell him who the pile of mismatched features was supposed to be. The fate of her skin, always blotched and half-rotting, varies from dream to dream: Sometimes, it was ripping and tearing like paper, sometimes hanging off her bones like tattered cloth, sometimes half-melting, sometimes peeling off and most of the times everything at once, huge chunks of the mess that was constantly chasing him and crawling after him in his nightmares kept falling off, and despite her horrible state, she always seemed to be able to torture him with accusations and piercing questions, even if she had a leg sprouting from her mouth or something like that.

However, the pain that these visions cause him only lasts until he wakes up and in his waking state, finds himself able to think rationally.

He knows very well that Romana would never have blamed him for her fate, she faithfully supported him until the end not only because of her loyalty and love to him, but for the sake of the entire universe that threatened to be blown apart by the war raging within it.

She would have understood.

Like she always had.

* * *

Don't blame me if you're traumatized, I warned you. Next up is one of my personal favourites: The 'delightful Miss Perpugiliam Brown', as the Master once called her, in Chapter 06: [Weakness]


	6. 06: Weakness

Disclaimer: The BBC owns "Doctor Who." I only own some time I wanted to kill with some creative task XD

* * *

06: [Weakness]

To the universe, he was a legend.

Some myths painted him as a sheer force of nature, an incomprehensible cosmic horror beyond words, the lone sovereign of a realm with power no one should possess – The horrible herald of death whom the countless worlds in the sky with their even more numerous people and their ungraspable number of languages had tried to find more and more titles for, one more fear-inspiring than the last, desperate to fill the blank space left my an unmentionable Name.

In others, he was celebrated as a hero – there were statues, portraits and myths, stories of liberation and revolution scattered in time, there were wise, wandering strangers, miraculous wizards with the power to conquer the world and the noble spirit to use it to save said world instead, songs and poems about lonely Gods enacting judgement and a pair of dreadfully ancient eyes up in the sky, keeping watch over the world, ready to unleash the white, blinding light of the newborn stars of molten metal that lay behind them.

In short, the Galaxies spoke of an invincible immortal.

That was the problem with myths – The seed that gave birth to them was often a spark of truth, but nourished by the fertile ground of human imagination, they tended to take the most bizarre shapes, and more often than not, the final result one had to work with when dealing with the actual 'source of inspiration' was less than accurate – The myths about his own person in particular couldn't have been further from the truth.

In the end, he was but a simple man – a bit harder to kill than your average humanoid, but not significantly so, and oh, he was a brilliant scientist and rightfully proud of it, but it was not like he was some sort of messiah, or like he could just… make stuff happen by pointing.

He knew very well that he was fallible, and every time he forgot it in a dark hour or a moment of weakness, even for a few seconds, the consequences burned that bitter knowledge deeper into his consciousness.

Most recently, it had been the genuine fear in the eyes of Tegan of all people, that deeply-rooted repulsion towards the blood that drenched his path, that had taught him humility anew – A few weeks ago, he had his TARDIS full with people he considered the younger siblings he never had, some looking up to him, some willing to learn from him, and some annoying, yet cute.

Gone was the somehow affectionate bickering that had once filled the console room, leaving only silence and simple, bone-white walls whose starkness should've stopped to irritate him long ago – at least, until the most recent resident of the time ship stepped on its bridge.

As he would one day tell a certain lonely painter, far in the future, when he was older and wiser, his experience had shown that there was, surprisingly, always hope.

Each and every breath was a new chance to find happiness, and while it was a given that you couldn't go on forever without getting to know the taste of sorrow, avoiding all _good_ things was no less impossible.

He knew it very well – Every time he felt like he was lost for good now, the heavens had opened up and revealed someone to duct tape him back together, and that big old universe was far too alluring for him to resist its temptations for too long.

Now back then, that someone with the Duct Tape had been a young American botany student who went by the name of Perpugilliam Brown.

She was neither the first nor the last, but he did not allow himself the injustice of comparisons – He knew better than to invalidate someone who had saved his life and/or soul.

Originally, he had taken her with him for the same reason he had taken many others: Because of the potential he had seen in her. As much as the tremor of her body and voice betrayed the fear that most people would have felt in the situations she tended to find herself in, it never succeeded to keep her from looking the danger into the eye, telling it what she thought of it and, if the situations allowed it, saving herself.

If she had told him the truth, her reaction to being trapped on a boat by her stepfather to foil her vacation plans was to just jump into the water and try to swim away, taking said stepfather's previous artefact with her as an additional way to…. Express her opinion to him.

Sure, she probably would have drowned if Turlough hadn't found her, but the act of defiance itself had earned her his respect and proved that there was potential to be cultivated – He took it upon himself to make sure she'd reach the shore on her own the next time.

Speaking of respect, she might probably have gained the Master's as well. According to what she told him later, his best enemy apologized for her almost falling into a trap that had been meant for _him_ when they met again – He didn't think that the Master would've shown much concern if she had actually died because of his actions, but his own, twisted kind of respect was respect nonetheless – but he was one to talk.

Most bystanders would probably fail to see any sort of mutual respect between him and Peri if they happened to witness them striding across the landscape – She would usually be complaining about everything in sight, and later, those complaints would often serve as the beginning of an argument, either thanks to his sixth incarnation's quite different temperament, or because she was simply starting to rub off on him.

The places he would bring her to would always be either too boring or too dangerous for her tastes, and her opinion as to which of those statements applied to their current location was not always consistent.

He still kept trying to impress her – Their little quarrels might annoy him in the moment they were happening, however, whenever he looked back on them later, he'd realize that they were merely proof to the fact that she saw him as he was – Not as a perfect, dashing hero or an unstoppable menace, but simply as himself.

In the beginning, she had already complained, because that's the way she was, but judging from some of the things she said later, she must've suspected that there was some kind of angel hidden beneath the straight, pale blond hair slightly odd cricket outfit.

He guessed that he couldn't blame her for feeling as if she had seen a worm crawl out of a recently bought, initially tasty-looking apple – She had seen but the softest, mildest sides, it was barely a wonder she would consider "sweet" a fitting adjective.

But this wasn't what he was like; he wasn't a classic dashing superhero. She shouldn't confuse him with Superman just because he occasionally happened to be running out of a phone box wearing glasses he didn't really need.

It wasn't that simple.

_He_ wasn't that simple.

He was eccentric, blunt, difficult to deal with, even harder to make sense of and sometimes admittedly thinking himself to be cooler than he actually was.

Not to mention that he was utterly clueless at what many would consider the "important things of life".

She had been very correct in her assessment when she had called him 'a confusing person to be around' – He was both a saviour and a sinner, ancient, yet childish and occasionally, showing signs of a midlife-crisis, wise yet inveterate, he spoke a lot without telling her nothing at all, and right now, he was feeling vibrant and determined again after a long time, and did not feel ashamed of showing it to the world with the help of a multi-coloured outfit, whether the world (including Peri) liked it or not.

And he was pretty sure she _did_ like it (his personality, not the outfit), at least after she had returned his smile after their departure from Jaconda.

The regeneration had certainly not made things easier, and he did not envy her for having to put up with him in the mess of a state he had been afterwards – To this day, he had no memory of assaulting her, and he honestly hoped he never _would_ remember – Until that day, he had thought himself to be axiomatically incapable of such acts, but he had been a fool to forget that he was just flesh and blood like everyone else – Regeneration had never suited him: What preceded it was seldom pretty, (Particularly this time – He could only think of a handful of times where he had come significantly closer to his physical annihilation than back then on Androzani Minor) it was either mind-numbingly painful, induced a swirl of incoherent visions or, like this time, both (For a moment, he could have sworn that he had seen Adric kneeling besides himself next to Peri, and had half expected the boy to extend his hand and guide him to the next world, just for the young prodigy to urge him to stay alive), and a cruel twist of fate had cursed him with a certain predisposition towards unpleasant side-effects.

How had his ancestors ever survived in the strife of evolution when their regenerations left them in a predicament that made it very hard to get away from what had caused the regeneration (for example, some random predatory animal) in the first place?

Having the layers of his personality riffled like a card deck was not too pleasant either and kept leaving him with the feeling that he had to get to know himself anew.

He sometimes wondered if the only thing that had kept her from just ordering him to bring her home was the knowledge that it was the deed of saving her life that had put him into that sorry state. In Hindsight, he was very grateful that she had stayed and cared for him, even if his pride had successfully prevented him from ever admitting that, let alone thanking her.

It had been a hard time for him, too, even if his worries probably looked silly compared to what she must've gone through. As much as his appearance and outward attitude might have changed, on some level, his appreciation for her had remained unchanged, and even if he hid himself behind a bombastic, confident attitude, having lost her trust, if only temporarily, was not a nice experience.

Still, it was only after that ordeal that he had started to feel what she probably had felt from the very beginning – She had told him that she "Really liked him", thought him to be sweet (As mentioned before, hat statement was highly inaccurate, but nonetheless well-meaning) and he could imagine very well what would have followed after her last "and-" if he hadn't cut her off to go and pick his outfit(He'd like to chalk his exorbitant thickness up to his peculiar mental state, yet the truth was that he had _always_ been that oblivious back then and had only _slightly_ improved since then.), and he also knew the exact four words he would have replied if she had ever tried to tell him again anytime after the adventure that had followed his eventful trip to the wardrobe, the three she would have said decorated with a comma and the little word 'too'.

The catastrophe that should have made them into strangers only managed to bring them closer together for to love someone is to love them despite their flaws which had made it far too easy to lose his hearts to a girl who had still remained at his side after seeing what it was that made him strong and what it was that made him weak.

It was, admittedly, more of a hate/love relationship, and yet, his voice had sounded affectionate when he had answered the question as to what they did in that little blue box with "argue, mainly", since those arguments immediately ceased in the face of danger, sometimes turning into very obvious despair if the other appeared to be caught in afore mentioned danger.

They had stood side by side, fending off the dangers that the universe kept throwing into their faces; She told him not to patronize her as they took out a couple of guards in perfect teamwork, she ended up saving both their lives when he stumbled into a trap of the Rani's and otherwise kept proving that he had not been mistaken when he decided to take her with him.

Neither of them attempted to stutter out those blasted words ever again, tough not because they lost their belief into the truth of that sentence: They simply happened to be busy all the time, all these Mentors, Cybermen, Daleks, Robots and stalkers (seriously, and he thought _Jo_ hat gotten lots of unwanted attraction…) kept getting in the way.

Just for the big words, tough, they never hindered the slow, gradual shift of things, the way their arguments lessened and the increasing number of times where she would play along with his bombastic way of introducing things to her.

Without ever asking for confirmation, they had begun to stop doubting that they had become strong enough to take each other as they were.

His initial fear of losing her had long since evaporated, as the timeframe in which she had known his present self had expanded and expanded whereas their earliest travels remained static memories. He did not even know how long it had been since they had departed together – however, the only ways they as wanderers in the fourth dimension had left of measuring their personal time, namely the growth of her hair and the maturation of her body, indicated that it had been years, not counting the time where she had still kept her chestnut brown hair short, and probably also missing the few months it had been since she had fully reached adulthood – Humans didn't change that much during their early twenties and she'd probably hid middle-age before _he_ started looking any older. (He was getting a bit chubby, tough. He should probably cut down on sweets)

At this point, Peri had probably completely forgotten about her initial intentions to return to return to Earth eventually – Turning up for her next semester looking visibly older was not really an option, and she did not really have anyone left who was worth returning to.

When her path led her to the world she had long since left behind for the final time, she probably wouldn't have been able to tell her own age, and the part of her life that could be ordered by calendars was but a series of faded images whose taste and smell she had forgotten.

Still, not even he had ever lost all attachment to his birthplace, and he had been away from it much longer than she had been from hers – When she found the blue planet ravaged and burned, his words couldn't soothe her grief in the slightest.

Oh, if they had only known of the conspiracy whose complicated, shadowy works they had just stepped into, if they only had known of the abrupt separation that had been awaiting them.

One of the greatest blessings of time has always simultaneously been one of its greatest curses: One remembers the past, not the future, and this allows the people of the universe to possess hopes for the future, as they can never see the grave holes waiting to devour their bodies, however, it also means that you have to live with the recollections of things after they are set in stone forever, and these particular memories would never fade from his mind.

The words he had always feared to hear, the spine-chilling way the reptilian abomination commented on his new body, _her_ body, her head shaven clean, her movements so disturbingly different, the appalled scream of the warrior king, the white light enveloping it all, marking the cessation of her existence, and his utter helplessness as he observed the screen, unable to do a thing.

He was far away, far away from her, light-years as well actual years, both in huge quantities, separated them, the walls of this room confined him within and kept him from going where he ought to be, where he was so desperately needed.

As the screen fades to white, all the layers of confidence, all the bombastic acts, all the walls he had built around his innermost that was no less fragile than it had been when he still walked around with that stick of celery just shattered and crumbled away around him, exposing nothing glorious or frightening, not even anything remarkable, absolutely nothing but a simple man with nothing but deep despair reflected in his light grey eyes.

The colour of his skin must have turned several shades lighter over the course of a second.

"You…killed Peri…"

He was devastated, ruined even, and yet, he struggled to pull himself together.

Had he been on his own or with someone he knew, he would have dropped to his knees, but he would not grant the Valeyard the pleasure to see him like this.

Fighting to turn tears into rage, he swore to seek out the ones responsible for this, lacing each of his words with a thin layer of wrath and disgust as he promised to find out what reason had been so pressing that some stuck-up, powermad Time Lords who had probably never seen his or Peri's faces in their entire lives thought that they could just go and end their both their lives at a whim – They had already succeeded at taking hers and he would not rest before he had a chance to ask them what she had ever done to them.

Not even the Valeyard's accusations could break his determination – not that it kept them from cutting deeply into the flesh of his soul.

Sure, he could more or less tell where records of the parts he had witnessed had been tampered with, and the part afterwards could have been pure fabrication, but the truth was that he could not really think of any different outcome – It must've been the truth.

She was dead, and the size of the hole she had left had painfully reminded him of how important she had been to him – not only was she ripped away from him, no, it had to happen like _that._ Those words she had said, that disappointment in her eyes… it all seemed to be straight out of his nightmares – like this entire situation in general.

The Inquisitor offered him a rest to calm down, to which he replied with an untypically low voice, that he _was_ perfectly calm, at least as much as the circumstances allowed it.

It didn't convince her too much.

And, as if he had peeked into his head, (As it turned out later, this was probably not so far from the truth) the Valeyard ordered him to be taken away – into the special suite, as a former president deserves, and of course, heavily guarded because "everyone here has seen what that despicable criminal is capable of.", telling everyone that they could continue this trait once he had "finished this blatantly fake, overly melodramatic farce."

_The special suite!_

What an outrageous example of audacious mockery!

The last thing the wanted to see now was all the pomp and gaudiness of the oh so illustrious Time Lord Civilization! If he hadn't instantly protested and adamantly refused to budge from the very square decimetre he was standing on, then only because he was, at this very instant, so boundlessly ashamed of being a Gallifreyan that he felt physically sick.

He wouldn't have any of it! _'We had to act'_ – the sheer repulsion was too intense for words or gestures.

All this had nothing to do with _her_ – it was him they wanted, right?

But no, they _had_ to play God a little, hadn't they? They had to have her immolated on the altar of their personal amusement, simply for the sake of painting him in a negative light to further their own plans.

As soon as a ludicrous number of guards has escorted him out of the courtroom, (Why so many? Even renegades could not fly or shoot beams from their eyes!) he began to regret ever leaving it – He could bear with the sudden emptiness that seemed to be pulling him apart from the inside if he was occupied with something, if he could concretely _do_ something to work against her murderers. Being in a silent sealed room with only his thoughts for company was an entirely different thing.

Nonetheless, it was too late to go back. He had no choice but to go on and walk into his golden cage, this dissipative monument of Time Lord arrogance that they seriously expected him to spend the night in.

The Door that he heard closing behind him was at least one foot thick and triple deadlocked – the only way out of here was the large panorama window taunting him with an excellent view of the nothingness beyond the space station.

How clever of them, how very clever of them to hold this trial on this space station in the middle of nowhere – He had acquired himself quite a group of allies back on Gallifrey, and of course, our mysterious conspirators, whoever they were, couldn't risk them butting in to save him.

He went further inside.

The sound his shoes made failed to significantly impress the silence that loomed above him.

Oh, he was usually very capable of filling soundless rooms with words, but there was no one to talk to, no one to listen to him, no one and nothing to occupy his mind, nothing to fill the bubble of emptiness raising within him, containing only one question and one very likely answer.

Defeated, he let himself sink into the nearest chair.

Had she truly died there, all alone, thinking he had abandoned her?

He was later told that she hadn't, much later, after everything was over.

Yet, he did not, as he had originally planned to, pay a visit to Krontep to provide her with an explanation and a wedding present after escorting Melanie back to her place in the time stream – How could she possibly have survived? The Situation was hopeless; at very least since the Moment he had been removed from it. He could not imagine how she could have escaped. And… She had always complained about how loud and hot-headed he was, why should she go on to marry someone who could _give him lessons _in being loud and hot-headed?

The bitter truth was that _this_ Detail at least, was fully possible – She disliked admitting defeat as much as he did, but that didn't change that she, despite her complaints, had grown to like loud and hot-headed men – if they were also righteous and determined.

It could be the truth… but then, if he thought it over, the only source the Inquisitor could have gotten that information from was the Master… And while the Valeyard had twisted the presented eventsin little, if important ways, there was no way of telling whether he could have fabricated a deviation as huge as a persons' death.

It could also be false.

Or not.

He would immediately suspect the Master to be lying if he had said something that would have been detrimental to him, but why should he make up something that made him look _better, _something that gave him hope?

Did he want to ridicule him by making him journey to Krontep to find out that Peri never got there? No, this man had known him for centuries, long enough to consider the possibility that he wouldn't dare to check on her. And he'd never lay a trap that wouldn't provide him the possibility to laugh at those who had fallen into it.

Could his old friend possibly have been… lying to comfort him?

The odds for her survival were fifty-fifty.

If it was the truth, he would only disrupt her new life alongside her new husband, and heaven forbid that he put her in the unfair situation of feeling obliged to follow him.

And if it was a lie, he did certainly not want to find out.

Not now.

For now, he would keep avoiding Krontep like the plague.

Maybe someday he would have the strength to go and find out.

If she was still there, she would probably give her best to demolish his eardrums with her shouting, if only because she had inwardly been worried sick about him, as he was certain that she would forgive him everything else the very moment she saw him – He was positive that she knew enough of his weaknesses to understand.

* * *

Sorry for the wait! I'm quite busy right now since I'll be taking my Abitur (German equivalent of A-Levels) in a few months.

I'll try to finish the next chapter quickly anyway - It will be called [Matters of the Heart(s)], will be starring Grace Holloway and therefore be the last installment of this starring the classic series. (The official site seems to include the Movie into the classics, tough I think that it's style resembles the new stuff more... or well, it's somewhat in-between with a few very own elements. The half human thing will not be mentioned/adressed because said blasphemy which brought an, in my personal opinion, otherwise agreeable movie into discredit, NEVER HAPPENED.)


	7. 07: Matters of the Hearts

Note: This is the PROPER Chapter Seven. Sorry everyone, I uploaded the wrong file and was unable to fix it due to a pesky bug. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I still don't own Doctor Who, the BBC does. I just love it alot!

* * *

07: [Matters Of The Heart(s)]

There was another side to life.

There had to be.

A side that had nothing to do with formulas and numbers, without excitement to push one onwards.

The sweet life, the slow life, the _real_ life.

The sort of life that he'd been but observing from afar for a long, long time now.

It was not as if he had any right to complain, after all, his life as it was now was something he had chosen for himself and stubbornly refused to give up ever since, the best thing he could have found for himself within the boundaries of his personal privileges and limitations.

Everyone knew those little moments of uncertainty where one feels like throwing everything away and laments over every path never taken, every chance never used.

There were probably few people in this big, wide universe who had never found themselves longing for the one single thing they could never have, and he was not one of them.

Those instants where he carelessly allowed himself to ponder the one riddle he would never solve, to wonder what it was like to belong somewhere, were what gave him the ability to value the simple yet brilliant lives of others, and he certainly didn't consider empathy a weakness – Even if its prize was occasional melancholy.

Most of the time, he was content with his life as it was and enjoyed the thrills of his travels as well as the beauty of the galaxies – If he was honest, there had been about 1001 possibilities for him to stop and stay, numerous sets of people and places, but he never really wanted to, not with all of his being.

There were things he envied those leading normal lives for, but if he really considered it; he would probably feel incredibly bored in-between the moments where those things happened. The time where he himself had lived one moment after the other seemed further and further away each day, and he didn't quite remember how he coped with it back then.

Still.

There was another side.

And what he had humbly assumed to be simply not meant for him would very soon offer him its sweet, tempting taste in the most unusual way – Oh, he had met people in the most unconventional ways, it was an unavoidable side effect of his tendency to attract trouble: He more or less kidnapped Ian and Barbara, Tegan happened to stumble into the TARDIS while looking for an _actual_ phone box, he blew up Rose's Job and Donna more or less just appeared in front of him without any sort of prior warning, but all of these encounters looked perfectly normal in comparison to his bizarre first encounter with Grace.

Of course, he had heard of her long before meeting her in person – He had read articles on her extraordinary achievements and found the attitude she displayed in her interviews to be somewhat inspiring – She herself had apparently been inspired by a childhood dream, one she had almost given up herself, until some incident taught her that reality was not as dull as many made it out to be, and that she believed it to be a place where dreams could sometimes come true, at very least for a short, yet nonetheless meaningful time.

She never disclosed what that incident was, but as with so, so many open questions of this world, he ended up finding out, albeit quite unintentionally this time – Their first meeting led to her not for all, but for many intents and purposes _killing_ him.

_Messily. _

Not that he blamed her – Finding an alien with two hearts on her operating table was certainly not a situation she had to deal with every week.

Still, he certainly didn't want to repeat that one experience – Not just the operation itself, that blurred swirl of pain, blinding lights and agony only interrupted by his on desperate screams and senseless warnings, that was nothing compared to most of the creative torture methods he had been subjected to over the years.

The _true_ ordeal had been the sorry state he'd found himself in after that somewhat delayed, messed up regeneration, cold, alone, confused, in pain and without memories or the slightest feeling of recognition at the sight of his own face.

He did, however, recognize hers when she happened to walk past the spot where he spent the night, and as a hazy memory of her face was, save for a few technical terms he could not arrange in a way that made sense, the only hint pointing towards his identity, he simply followed her in a way that, as he had concluded in hindsight, bore resemblance to the behaviour of an obedient little puppy.

He had asked her for help as politely as he could, however with him being not only himself, but in addition to that not exactly right in the head at the moment, he only succeeded in convincing her that he must've escaped from the psychiatric ward of the hospital she worked in.

Only pulling the very catheter she had accidentally ended his seventh life with out of his chest was enough to convince her.

What followed was a little conversation at her now half-empty house, which resulted in them getting to know each other a bit.

He came to the conclusion that she was exactly as he would have imagined her, even if he didn't recall imagining her in the first place. Still, she was anything but a disappointment, and he felt honoured to have met her for some reason, which couldn't be a bad thing.

And she liked _opera music!_ It was rare to find fellow disciples of science that had an eye for Art, and vice versa. She was certainly an extraordinary individual – and while he still didn't have a clue who he was, he had at very least reached the conclusion that he was bubbly and somewhat scatter-brained, with a puppy-ish streak. For some reason, this felt oddly refreshing and unusual, as if he was not used to it.

As he tried on the shoes she brought him, he idly wondered why their previous owner had packed his furniture and left after stumbling about such a smart, ready witted, competent girlfriend. She was pretty, too, with that dark strawberry-blonde hair of hers and that beaming smile full of flawless teeth. She was pretty much his type.

Normally, he wouldn't even have taken the time for such a tiny observation, as he usually had his head full with urgent problems which required quick solutions – and even if he would let his thoughts wander, he always knew that he would have to depart again, in addition to his crippling inability to take the initiative in such situations.

However, at that precise Moment, he did not remember any of this.

He started to recall things, tough, little by little, one thing at a time, and when the fog lifted itself, that little observation he wouldn't have made had a greater effect than he could have anticipated. Overtaken by a flood of Memories suddenly releasing itself into his head, his instinctual reaction was to just grab her and kiss her.

Yes.

Dying, Amnesia, impending Apocalypse, and last but not least, the recovery of his own identity.

This incredible list was what it took for him to overcome, or, more accurately, overlook his restraints and kiss the pretty woman in front of his face.

They were both completely overwhelmed by the sensations, if not for the exact same reasons – Grace, however, being the way she was, immediately grasped the opportunity and demanded another kiss right away.

And he gladly complied.

He, too, had to try this again and ascertain himself that it had been real before he could possibly start believing that this had actually happened to _him_ and not to someone else, to confirm that he hadn't just been watching some other man he would now have to part with.

Greedily, both their lips took enough for a lifetime, hers, finally claiming the prize they had been searching for so long in all the wrong places, assuring themselves of the very real presence of something she thought to be a dream, seizing the opportunity she had always been waiting for, knowing that it would never come again ("I finally found the right guy and he's from another planet!"), and his, fulfilling the undisclosed desires of the hearts driving them, allowing her to fill voids that he had never been aware of.

Almost shell-shocked and yet paradoxically euphoric at the same time, he came to the realization that he had been _wishing_ for something like this for a long time now, deep within his most vague, most fleeting dreams.

He couldn't believe that _this_ was kissing – He had done this before, but that was a long, long time ago – It had been _centuries._ It _must have been_ centuries, for him to feel like a clueless schoolboy again, like he'd been touched for the very first time.

He had honestly forgotten what it felt like – And he no longer had any post-regeneration amnesia he could blame for _that_ particular memory lapse.

Unfortunately for the two of them, the trouble he was supposed to be thinking about right now, namely, the Master, caught up to them in that very instant.

As far as explaining the Situation to Grace and getting her to help him without wasting too much of their extremely limited time was concerned, the best he could say was that he had learned from his mistakes by the time he found himself in a similar situation during the Atraxi incident.

He guessed that he could be happy not to have left her house in a straightjacket, and to make things worse, the ambulance she called already contained a proper madman at the time of its arrival: The Master, dressed in black as always.

He could understand the shades, as they were meant as disguise, but seriously?

A _leather trench coat? _

Had he watched a little too much Terminator lately?

Maybe it had been too early to hope for an improvement in his fashion sense after he had swapped the medieval-looking outfit for a suit.

As he should have expected, things escalated into a car chase – motorcycle chase, actually, but who bothers with the details? He hadn't had any of those since the good old UNIT Days!

The motorcycle itself had been a hand-me-down from a policeman whom he had persuaded with a little help from Grace – He had tried it with his own methods, including Jelly Babies, but it hadn't really worked, so Grace had taken the matters into her own hands.

While he did not normally approve of pointing firearms at other people, he knew that Grace wouldn't have fired the gun. The determination with which she had demanded the keys had actually been quite impressive.

She had potential – he knew that she would realize it in the future, but he didn't think it would break to many rules if he took her with him and returned her in time.

They made quite an effective team, and despite her initial refusal to believe any of it, she adapted to the situation fairly quickly and certainly proved herself useful – in fact, that competence of hers ended up saving the earth and its surroundings.

Oh, and she also returned from the dead, with a little help from the TARDIS.

His Spaceship and he could never resist fixing anyone who declared to have "grown up."

So it happened that, at the turn of the Millennium, both he and Grace Holloway got a taste of a side of this world that they had neglected for a long time, in a way, complimenting and filling each other with inspiration.

It was a bit ironic – He knew of the future of so many people and thorough this adventure, he had been distributing hints of what was to come in the new Millennium, but Grace, this amazing woman with the bright smile, unrepentantly declined his offer to tell her of what was to come, as much as she had asked him for clues earlier.

And yes, why should she want to hear of anything he could tell her if she had been somewhere he had never been before?

It was exactly the other way around.

_She_ was in the position to give _him_ a hint, and she did.

And while it was nice to know that there was nothing to fear within the boundaries of the undiscovered country, as Shakespeare had called it, he was not too keen to go and see it anytime soon – The undiscovered spots of _this _world were more than enough to satiate his curiosity for now.

Nevertheless, there _was_ one thing he would give her, maybe not as useful as a glimpse into her future, yet – or at least so he hoped – something equally memorable.

Just one more taste of the world where dreams come true.

Quite literally so.

It was not quite as easy as it had been back in the park when he had just regained his Memories – He guessed that this was, ironically, a good sigh.

He felt like himself again, for better or for worse, stuck with no choice but to do things his own way.

His head and lips moved hesitantly, carefully, as if he was afraid to either break her somehow, or to do just plain old do it wrong, placing a tender farewell kiss upon her lips as the fireworks coloured the canopy above them, celebrating the birth of a new era not only for the two of them, but for the rest of this planet as well.

Of course, he asked her to come with him, but he already knew her answer from the beginning. She had told them that he knew who she was and where she belonged, and so did he, now that the aftereffects of the regeneration had completely worn off.

He was not concerned about any of her qualities going to waste; he already knew that she would make the best out of them, as well as he also knew that she would never forget her bubbly, chaotic, sweet-loving futuristic lover.

He had no regrets here, no reason to feel sad or disappointed.

It was time for their ways to part.

When she asked him to come with him instead, he showed her an honest smile and told her that it was a tempting offer – This was no lie, it truly was tempting, but in the end, he had already known how he would decide.

He always had.

Still… Now he was certain that that there _was_ another side to life.

And that it had been nice to get to know it, however briefly.

* * *

So, there it is! Sorry for the wait^^ This one is a bit shorter, but I'm mostly pleased with it's flow and the way it turned out. So, 7 Chapters are done, 7 more to go! It's time for the New Series! As for the contents of the next chapter, I believe that it will be sufficient to say that it's title is going to be 08:[Bad Wolf].


	8. 08: Bad Wolf

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, I wouldn't be biting off my nails waiting for series 6.

* * *

Notes: As you can probably tell by the title of this chapter, this one is about the Doctor's relationship with Rose Tyler - As I am aware, she is very divisive. Probably, one half of you only clicked on this FF to see if there's a Rose chapter, and the other half will skip this one alltogether, so here will be a few annotations: I'm neither with the rabid haters nor with the butthurt fangirls. This has gotten so long, because frankly, there were lots of material to deal with, she's all over the RTD-Era. That's the only reason - I tend to get carried away...°^^ She is played up as "the One" a bit, but only because that is what the narrative of the actual show seems to suggest (be it a good or a bad thing) not because she's my personal favourite. (Which she isn't.) There's some glorification, but that's only because this is writted mostly from the Doctor's PoV, he always seemed to have put her on some sort of pedestral. That said, while Rose is not my Uber-Mega-One-True-Favourite, I DO like her. I know that's personal taste, but I think she's pretty epic.

Also, this will focus more on Series 1 than on Series 2 because a) everyone else does it the other way around b) I think the former is where most of the important stuff happens and c) I love Nine. Don't worry, there's still plenty of Ten here, and there will be even more in the upcomming few chapters. So, now, go read it. Just give it a try. I hope you will be able to enjoy it regardless of shipping preference.

08: [Bad Wolf]

He didn't do it because he wanted to.

He did it because there was no other option

A few billion Time Lords and at most ten times as many Daleks in exchange for all of creation – pretty simple math, actually.

However, the math was just about the only simple thing about the choice he had been forced to make, a decision that no living being should ever have been burdened with, a power that no one should ever have had, and he had used it for nothing but destruction.

He could not just stand back and watch – He had devoted his life to the wonders, the mysteries and the endlessly diverse lifeforms of the borderless universe.

How could he possibly allow all to be wasted to satisfy the ego of one single egomaniac?

There had never been any sort of alternative; he had to do it, even if it went against anything he stood for, all that he believed in, everything he was.

Someone had to dirty their hands – the demons of war demanded a sacrifice to stuff their mouths, and he would gladly become that sacrifice if it meant the end of that senseless waste of life.

It wasn't as if he hadn't sinned before - This hell was also the result of his own faults and shortcomings, it was only right that he should take responsibility for it.

So he took it upon himself to end it all, the fights, the death, the destruction, the hatred that had changed his people beyond recognition.

He could not even begin to describe what performing that unspeakable deed had felt like – The only thing he could say was that it certainly bore little resemblance to what the Master must have imagined when he asked him about it.

He did not know how long it would take him just to… process these memories to a degree that would allow him to wrap them into words, and even if he should reach that stage one day, he would have to make up an entirely new language to even begin to do them justice, one that was exclusively composed of dreadful screeches and moans of agony.

It was as if that experience had… burned, infected, irradiated or otherwise dealt him a sort of damage that kept spreading even after the action that had caused it joined the realm of the past, as if a hole had been punched into his soul through which his very essence kept running out, drop by drop, rivulet by rivulet.

It did not take him long to realize that what he was experiencing was the feeling of a wound that would not heal.

He tried to live on as he had before, because there were still undiscovered things in the universe, and that had always been enough for him.

Nonetheless, the best he could do was to resemble the man he was – He was all to aware of that when he passed his younger self in the crowd, ready to board the Titanic with Jamie in tow. He had still been relatively new to earth back then, so had been unaware of what had been awaiting him.

When he saw himself, idly chatting to the Scottish warrior, he had a hard time believing that this man had ever existed, no matter how much both his eyes and his mind told him something else. That warmly smiling person in that oversized fur coat, with the thick black hair and the tanned skin of an adventurer that was used to fighting his way through the wilderness and these crystal blue eyes that didn't match the rest of his appearance, giving him a subtle, unearthly touch, that couldn't possibly be him, could it?

The man in the fur coat carried a certain air of wisdom and experience, but he didn't look ancient in the way that a tree, a church or a mountain would – was it that the disparity between his apparent and actual age was less noticeable if he looked like an old man, or was it just that this younger him was yet unburdened by the knowledge of being the only one left, the last remnant of a once great civilization, no different from the ruins of an ancient temple, slowly eroding as time passed by and rampant vines claimed it as their territory?

Either way, it felt like there was an infinitely wide and immeasurably deep precipice between him and his younger self, like the latter was in a place he could never go back to.

He couldn't go back – He had to go on, even if the only way he could do so was by drifting around like a forgotten derelict.

He succeeded in keeping a family from boarding the Titanic, and yes, it granted him some temporary happiness, but he could never shake off the feeling of loneliness that made his usual slightly-mad looking grin feel like a hollow mockery of what it used to be.

The truth was that he was still falling. He was still hurting. He was still fading.

He was drowning, and there was no one to help him to breathe.

He had lost it all, and there was no one to help him to be.

Or so he thought.

So he thought, before he met her.

Now, he knew that he wasn't cut out for the sort of life where you came across your soul mate, immediately fell, no, plunged into burning, unconditional love and stayed together until your last breath and, if you didn't happen to be the first one to die, never remarried – His personality, his lifestyle and last but not least the life expectancy of a Time Lord made it almost impossible.

But if there had ever been something close to "The One" in his life, it had been Rose Tyler.

She was much like these simple, but pure-hearted peasant girls you occasionally found in fairytales – a shop girl living in a council estate who hadn't even graduated from school, with nothing, absolutely nothing about her that might appear special at first glance – well, except for her chocolate brown eyes that could be warm and understanding, and yet, exactly as capable of burning with the fire of determination, nothing but these flawless tresses of hair that was as golden as her heart, nothing but the vaguely canine-looking features of her face that took but a few moments to entrance him and that could exert so much power over him by an act as subtle as forming a smile or a frown.

She might not have had the sort of intelligence one might need to understand complex scientific theorems, however, she used her mind, she actively thought about the things that happened around her, as he couldn't help but note when they first met.

She could have remained nothing but an interesting acquaintance, one of the many intriguing humans he had met over the course of his travels, but the red string of fate – or was it a particularly nasty plastic arm? – drew them together again.

And, confirming his first impression of her, Rose Tyler would not be satisfied without an explanation.

He did not know what it was that compelled him to grab her hand and tell her that there were beings like him who had let go of the ground beneath their feet – perhaps he felt that she deserved to know, maybe he hoped to inspire and use her potential.

Another possibility was that he had already fallen under her influence at this point, being moved by a desire to make her remember him that he was not yet aware of at the time.

Whatever it may have been, fate drew them together once again, and this time, not without intertwining the strings that made up the stories of their lives.

Oh, these old hearts of his! He had believed that the last drop of anything that vaguely resembled the capacity to love had been squeezed out of them by the iron claws of the war, but in truth, the open wounds on his soul left it more desperate for, and therefore more receptive of any sort of love he could get than ever before.

He could not believe how a person of his age could fall this easily, this fast, and this hard.

It felt a bit surreal to just take someone with him as he had done before, just as if nothing had ever happened, but his regret didn't last as long as he expected it would – Perhaps in an attempt to come to grips with his dreadful experiences, he had spent the last days seeking out tragedies, like the explosion of the Krakatoa or the Murder of John F. Kennedy, and next on his list was the Death of the Earth.

Understandably, it took some time for Rose to get used to seeing much more of the Universe from a very new and very different perspective.

Still, it was no sooner than during what she would later come to refer to that he kept being astonished again and again by her purity; Seeing how she even felt pity for a despised being that almost took her life only made him realize how old and bitter he had become.

In the end, no one was there to observe the end of planet Earth, not even him - and she was upset by that, she felt sorry for an abandoned piece of rock, one that had been her home, but simple rock nonetheless.

Her words touched that part of his soul which he had thought to have been replaced by a gaping hole – Much like Earth; Gallifrey had also been destroyed without anyone to witness it.

He had never seen how all the screaming people vanished into the night, or how the burning pieces of his homeworld had broken apart – He had lost consciousness when the explosion of the machine he had fabricated to bring about the end of days had burned his eighth face off his skull, and didn't come to before the planet was reduced to still-glowing rubble – Anyone who had accompanied the dying planet in its final minutes had gone down with it.

He had finally found them, the words to describe the unspeakable, pouring out of the lips of a simple shopgirl like drops of fragrant nectar dripping from a heavenly flower.

The simple smile with which she diverted his thoughts from his dark and lonely fate to a dish composed of fried potato stripes was the icing on the cake that sent him into unhinged free fall. When she changed into that period outfit for their next trip, he was consummately stunned by her beauty; by the time they found themselves enclosed in that tiny room in 10 Downing Street, he had already equalled the value he attributed to her with that of the entire planet earth, the only home he had left.

After that, it didn't take very long until even a Dalek, the sort of being that is the farthest from being able to as much as grasp the concept of love, could tell what he felt and spat it defiantly into his face. And even in the depths of that concrete vault, Rose shone like a star through the shrouds of his personal darkness, drenching everything around her in her radiance from which not even that lone Dalek could escape.

In the Moment she confronted him, when her sharp, questioning voice cut through his facades and defence mechanisms, silencing the rage that had overpowered the better parts of him, leaving his true self exposed to her, the whimpering, helpless, desperate mess he was, the irredeemable sinner that he hated with every fibre of his being.

And in spite of all she had witnessed, she didn't give up on him.

He couldn't deny that her ability to just… forgive others and accept them as they were, even the likes of himself and that Dalek, had thoroughly terrified him at the moment – in hindsight, he came to the conclusion that it had probably been his own insecurities.

He simply couldn't understand what a wonderful person like her, someone who was just that much better than him could possibly want from a monster like him, to the point that he pondered whether this was something that only humans could understand.

He felt unworthy of her – which probably explained the first and only bouts of jealousy he had ever experienced in his long life.

Normally, he was more the type to give up and put the happiness of others before his own rather than to try and grab some of it for himself, and seeing what a wonderful person Rose was, he couldn't really blame Mickey, Jack and Adam for showing interest in her – He didn't really have anything against them (Well, except for the last one, tough this was for other, very good reasons unrelated to Rose) and had forged a strong bond with the former two after they had proven their worth, it was only that Rose was pretty much everything he had left in this life – He just needed her that much, he was merely that afraid to lose her.

There was nothing he could do – he had been truly, madly, deeply in love with her ever since he first grabbed her soft hand and whispered a single word to her.

There were misunderstandings and all but harmonic encounters with her mother, but all in all, it took but a simple glance to notice how quickly they had formed an effective, harmonic team where each of them complimented the other – she made sure to keep his feet on the ground while he took charge of introducing her head to the clouds.

He was starting to feel like himself again – the healing process set in like an incandescent pain wrecking parts of his existence that had believed to have long since lost to the shroud of numbness that surrounded him, a torment that tantalized him to make him realize that he could still feel.

All he knew was that he was different from her, that he was damaged, corrupted and defiled something that she would never be. He was lonely, scared, ashamed and unable to convey it, as much as he needed her to know.

He couldn't believe that she could possibly love him – after all, not even his reflection seemed to hold anything but contempt for him.

And she changed that, she changed him. She mended him, she made him better.

Oh, he had taken so many wonderful people along with him to show them their true potential, but in Rose's case, it had been first and foremost her who had turned him into a better person, no matter how much she claimed the opposite.

Their latter journey into her own past involved their first mayor fallout and almost ended with him dying and her breaking reality, but in the end, it only served to bring them closer together, and left him able to put up with himself a little longer, now that he had managed to do something meaningful for her.

(He couldn't help but notice that Jackie had been a little hypocritical, tough – Not much unlike her daughter, she had fallen for a less-than-reliable man who'd never know what he'd be doing the next day – they even looked alike.)

However, the moment where he realized that he had found the person he wanted to spend eternity with didn't arrive until that blessed, blessed day where nobody died, the instant he spun her around in his arms, both their bodies moving as one to the tune of the music, leaving a slightly disappointed-looking Jack to ponder which of them he envied more.

It was not only that he was entirely happy – it was that, for the first time ever since he ended the war, he felt like he was allowed to smile.

It was then that he knew for sure – if there was still redemption for his blackened, sullied heart, if there was anyone who could save him, it was Rose Marion Tyler.

There may have been a time where he wouldn't even have tried, but he didn't have the strength for that anymore.

Despite being very aware that he wasn't any good with everyday things like these, after having shunned such situations for a long time, he could no longer ignore the small voices in the back of his head that kept asking him if he wasn't tired.

Tired of having no place to return to, tired of witnessing all that waste of life, always under fake names, always on the run… He thought he loved his life.

He had chosen and defended it many times – how could it be that he'd only started questioning everything now, after the option to return to Gallifrey had ceased to exist.

Or maybe it had happened exactly because he had nowhere to return to.

Whatever it may be, he wasn't given the time to ponder why he was suddenly wishing for things he almost feared before, because destiny caught up with him in the form of a transmat beam sent by the self-proclaimed God of all Daleks.

Faced with a ruined world and a fleet of his worst enemies, he saw that his sacrifice had been for naught.

His homeworld. That little manor halfway up the mountains. His parents, his stern, mysterious mother, the father who had taken him with him to watch meteor showers. His elder brother, 214 years his senior, a polite, withdrawn man he had barely known. His children. His grandchildren. Classmates. Friends. Allies. Mentors. Old enemies.

Even his smelly godmother.

All of them, lost for all eternity for absolutely nothing.

They were here. The Daleks. Ready to wreck the Universe.

Ready to, no, already wrecking the earth.

Once again, the universe demanded that very same horrible choice of him.

His homeworld, this time his adopted one, or the rest of the universe.

It was different this time – there were numberless colonies amongst the stars, he was certain that this world could be repopulated – It had withstood worse.

He could not save the earth anyway – his only option was to try and contain the damage.

It was, one again, simple math.

Nonetheless, his fingers slipped off the lever.

He couldn't.

He just couldn't do this again.

Not after seeing the debris of a world that was float through the blackness.

Not after Rose had made him a better person. Jack had told him that he had done that very same thing for him; half-jokingly stating that he was better off as a coward – Well, he himself had probably been better off as a Monster born in the heart of a hellish war.

He had failed.

He had failed them all, all those who had given their lives for his cause… Jack, Lynda…

Accepting the just sentence that was to serve as payment for his sins, he surrendered himself to his inevitable fate, closing his eyes and relishing his last breath.

His only remaining hope was that these Daleks would not kill him right away – he would prefer them to waste his four remaining lives away one after another, lest his death be less slow and painful as he deserved it.

All the same, there was someone who held a very different opinion of what he deserved.

Someone who had not given up her hope.

Yes.

The only person in the universe who could possibly consider him worth saving.

That simple shopgirl from London.

She and the ungodly power she had borrowed from his very likeminded, sentimental old time machine.

When the doors opened, she did not step out of the TARDIS.

She flowed.

Like a gentle breeze carrying drops of liquid gold with it that eventually reconstructed into her shape right before his wide-open eyes and his sixth and seventh senses that showed him the exact magnitude of what she had done.

It was one of the most beautiful, most horrifying things he had seen in his life.

She appeared to be made of loosely connected golden dust struggling to keep its form despite the pressure of the holy light trying to break free from within, shining through at the edges and outlines of her being.

Her voice lost its accent, if calling it "voice" still did her communication justice – Her lips still moved and sounds came out, but this echo, that reverberation came from within him, his mind resonating with hers, transcribing the pure thoughts into words, words that anyone would understand to the fullest, phrases that anyone would hear in their mother tongue, speaking directly into their hearts.

The radiance penetrated both her skin and her clothes at the edges of her small form, and her eyes were the least of a barrier to the effulgent, aureate luminescence, especially if you dared to stare directly into them.

The coruscating light bloomed beneath her skin, dancing like the hydrogen in the layers of a sun, sometimes damning, sometimes blessing, rising above both good and evil, neither of which could escape her corona of molten metal.

Her actions were judgement, like that which dripped, rippled and poured from the hands and mouth of a god.

With nothing but a thought, she returned the stuff of his nightmares to nothing.

She also brought Jack back, even if she wasn't aware of that at the time – She also spread the words that lead her here, words that he would come to see again much later, making him wonder what else she had done in these instants where she was not limited by times and places.

Her sheer absurd level of power made his blood run cold.

Sometimes he wondered if she had seen how their story would end.

That said, her descriptions of what she was seeing painfully reminded him of his own encounter with the untempered schism – But this was significantly worse.

Not just because she was a human – She was not just seeing all this; it was running through her head, the deep, bronze, bell-like voices of the planets, the melodies of space and time themselves struggling to leave the confines of a being that was unable to process them.

While her will was no longer bound by anything, and her mind extended into infinity, the human brain that was meant to contain it had stayed exactly where it was – simple, hydrocarbon-based living tissue that would soon collapse into its components under the strain of eternity ringing through her skull, all of this to save the life of a powerless old man.

Multiple rivulets of tears sparkled beneath her eyes as she cried out in pain.

He did this to her.

To his beautiful, brave, pure-hearted, beloved Rose.

It was all his fault.

Oh why, why did he always destroy everything he touched, when all he ever did was trying to help?

He didn't pause to think, not even for a second.

His decision was taken, his mind made up.

He didn't think he'd be able to provide a reasonably clean transfer, not on such short notice, with these amounts of energy. He was fairly sure that he would be able to save her, but he was equally sure of what this would entail. If he'd concentrate on cleanly removing that energy from her and sealing this event away from her mind, there would be nothing to keep his own body from being fried like an overheated conduit.

The luckiest outcome he could expect was a moderately successful regeneration.

But that was allright with him.

She had ended up in her current state because she had come for him, because she had been certain that he would have done the same thing for her – and he would not allow himself to fail to prove himself to be worthy of her trust.

Without a moment's hesitation, he sealed both his fate and her lips with his own, giving up several centuries of his life in exchange for the few decades of hers in this eternally frozen moment where she was everywhere and everywhen at once, yet most of all in his arms, as he desecrated the smooth, warm surface of her skin with his old, spent, badly-cared for lips, tenderly, carefully, gently, as if the slightest ghost of touch could make her return to dust right between his hands which seemed to large, too clumsy to be allowed to handle her small, delicate frame.

As she collapsed into his arms, the only thing about her that retained its golden shine was her hair, and he, having pulled his death from her eyes, gave his faithful starship back what was hers, before bending down to pick up Rose.

It was weird, not feeling any pain, tough he knew very well that his body likely to be damaged beyond repair.

It left an empty space, a little timespan that wanted to be filled with false hope, wandering thoughts and a surreal feeling of lightness.

She had tasted of honey, caramel and lemon, rich, warm, yet refreshing, more like something that would give him life rather than take it. It seemed so inherently wrong that something this beautiful could be deadly.

It was, in a way, the end of a lifetime for him, and well-aware that he was falling apart, he no longer cared about the consequences that whichever version of him would be around tomorrow would have to deal with, and allowed himself to caress her cheeks lovingly, affectionately capturing the feel of her soft, golden hair.

Lifting her from this cold, destroyed place unbecoming of the sheer aura of life that had always surrounded her, he held her close to his chest as he carried her into the TARDIS, feeling the warmth of her body into the coolness of his own.

He knew that it would not be enough to combat the cold of death was beginning to grip him. The pain had decided to stop keeping him waiting for its arrival.

It was over – and there they came, the first signs of regeneration, that subtle, golden glow stroking his skin.

To his utmost shock, he felt sad.

He would not have been surprised to feel rage rising out of the depths of his hearts, disappointment at having to live on, but he would have never expected any sort of lament that this life, this incarnation of his was coming to an end, that he would wished to have lasted longer, with her at his side.

What he did, however, not feel, was any regret about having saved her.

It was a pity that it had to happen this soon, tough… he had not yet found the time to tell her about regeneration. There were only instants left for him to bid her farewell, for these deep blue eyes of his to look their last.

It was the most bittersweet of feelings – In a way, he would never see her again, in another, she was safe and would remain at his side.

Clumsily, he tried to sum up the plethora of emotions that ranged from deep depression to unconditional bliss with a sad smile, revelling one last time in the feeling of warmth that her company brought him.

"…Before I go, I just wanted to say that you were fantastic, absolutely fantastic…" he spoke with utmost admiration. "And you know what? So was I."

To his surprise, his smile was honest.

All in all, he was not ashamed of what he had done in his ninth life.

For the first time in what felt an eternity, he was glad to have survived the Time War.

He was glad to have lived, glad to have met her, glad to have been the man he was, the person she had fallen in love with.

If she could love him, maybe there was still hope for him.

If she could love him, maybe he would be able to stop hating himself one day.

There were so many, many things he wanted to say, including those blasted three words, but the time was up.

But that was all right. He trusted his smile to say more than enough in the seconds before he left this world to become light and heat and fire in the advent of his violent death and rebirth.

He had never had much control over what he would turn into, but concentrating on his wish to make her happy was worth a try.

He succeeded.

Within the pillar of golden light he had exploded into, cells divided and flowed, structures reshaped, hair grew and flesh reformed itself for her and her alone, for the person that had granted him this new life in the first place, the woman he loved, the one that had saved him in so many ways.

He longed to be more like her, to understand her better, so be more sensitive towards her and her fellow humans. He wanted to be pure like she was, cleansed of his hatred and his rage, so he would never do anything that would make her glare at him like she had done in Van Statten's museum, so she would never think of his as callous ever again.

He wanted to be confident enough to give her all the things she deserved, to get along to those around her, to stay for the "domestic" stuff, for the "cleaning up and partying" part of adventure that he had always shunned until now, to better show her his love, so that he might be able to confess his feelings to her, on some faraway day somewhere in the outskirts of the universe.

He wanted to make her laugh and to feel free enough to laugh with her – and, if it wasn't too much to ask, he wanted his looks to please her, as well. It wouldn't be bad if he'd look a little closer to her age, and a bit more hair wouldn't be bad either – or good looks in general.

More often than not, his reaction to his new face would be some variation of "Oh no!" tough his various visages had grown on him over time. He tended to have that sort of beauty that had to be realized at second glance – Still feeling a little insecure; he only hoped to get something that would look attractive at first glance for a change.

And how about some red hair? That was the only hair colour he had yet to try out…

The last one was probably a bit too much to ask, but as far as the rest was concerned, it worked… more or less.

A bit skinny perhaps, he still looked somewhat geek-ish…

Not that he'd want it any other way.

As a man in his mid-life-crisis, he certainly didn't mind the youthful appearance, but this went beyond "a little younger" – He'd probably better search the TARDIS for his old fake glasses if he still wanted to be taken seriously now and then – Or get himself new ones that would go better with this darker eye colour.

If Cassandra was to be believed, he had at least succeeded in making his new form suit her tastes – nevertheless, that was way beside the point:

Most humans weren't used to men changing their faces right in front of them.

He hadn't wanted to confront her with that this soon. If he'd had any choice, he would've given her some… prior warning and a long, diligent explanation – Perhaps he shouldn't have expected her to accept something like this without further ado just because she had witnessed killer pepper pots, trampoline women and the like.

It was an undeniable truth that her reaction was an understandable outcome of him failing to prepare her for this earlier. On the other hand, another such truth was that he was about as confused and afraid of having lost the person he wanted to have at his side forever so very soon after finding them as she was – He could not blame her for feeling literally alienated from him after seeing such obvious proof that he was not of her kind.

She had known that since the beginning, but he supposed that it was fairly easy to forget as he looked almost human.

She was probably just afraid… that she might've lost the man she was willing to give her life for mere minutes ago.

Still, this situation wasn't easy for him, either – and by that, he did not mean the severe aftereffects that had rendered him bedridden for the first hours after the regeneration – which was, unfortunately, when some pesky Roboforms and a tribe of Sycorax decided to conquer the earth – he'd lived through worse.

But still, he had not exactly wished for all of this to happen, nor had he chosen the state he ended up in… What really affected him was that Rose had almost lost faith in him – so quickly after all he'd done to save her life.

The feelings that had prompted him to do so still burned within his chest, their intensity unchanged by the regeneration, and the thought of her not wanting him anymore, after all they went through, was no confortable one – He would let her go if that was what he wanted, but he couldn't help but look crestfallen when she asked him to change back.

He had thought to have found someone who'd accept him as he was, and now, he found himself doubting that.

However, his doubts, much like hers, didn't last long, for the badly-timed invasion swiftly offered him a chance to prove himself and assure Rose that he would never, ever leave her alone – When she let him take her hand as he had done so many times before, both were certain that they had not lost each other, and he set out to see brand new worlds with his new eyes, alongside his new girlfriend and… his new hand as well, he guessed.

…Girlfriend?

Yes. If she hadn't occupied the place in his life that was implied by that title before, she had definitely earned it by the bad wolf incident, or shortly afterwards.

The bond between them had definitely reached a new level – If nothing else, the fact that he actually stuck around for the Christmas party should be proof of that – A blind leap out of his comfort zone, into the… domestic areas of life, something she had asked for before, a large deviation from his usual course of action - before he really noticed, that little apartment in the Powell Estates had become a place he could return to, an answer to all these new question that the war had made him ponder.

In the end, it had brought them closer, all these crazy events.

How could they not be connected forever, after seeing each other that ready to give their lives for them?

After all, she had fallen for him all over again, despite his different face, different looks and quirks and everything… It meant that she truly loved the soul of him, didn't it?

That she wanted him for being simply himself, for being that eccentric old scientist, the simple, flawed if brilliant, strong yet vulnerable man at the innermost of his being.

It had to be about him, right? If it was the Time Travel and the futuristic technology stuff, she would have chosen Jack, if it was about the brains, she'd have gone with Adam, and if any of the things he would never be able to giver her were essential to her, she'd have returned to Ricky… er, Mickey.

Yes, maybe he had found the one that was meant for him, the one he had been born to meet all these centuries ago, the reason why destiny had decided that it was not his time yet back when his homeworld fell.

Perhaps he had finally found her, centuries younger than him, born millennia before him, not even from the same world as him, and he had still found her...

Yes, maybe he had found the one.

Either that or he was just too lovesick to consider that she might've fallen for one set of decorations after another. Too lovesick or too afraid.

Anyhow, what followed were some of the happiest days of his life, those blessed months of harmony in which he had never been short of hands to hold, smiled to return and divine beauty to embrace, where one thrilling adventure had chased the next one and he felt like he was at the top of the world.

She would be able to read a thousand words out him simply by locking eyes with him and her arms around him made him feel loved and wanted in a way that a vagabond like him never hoped to experience each and every time their shadows melted into one as they shared the warmth of their bodies and listened to the sounds of each other's heartbeats, with no need for words.

There were also kisses, small pecks exchanged in moments of intense emotions, whenever their relief at seeing each other alive made him forget his limitations, spontaneous lip collisions that were never spoken of again.

Whenever his personal darkness came for him in the heart of the night, he'd walk to her room to place himself next to her in a position where their foreheads touched – and this was the closest he would come to her.

If she snuggled up to him in her sleep or threw her limbs around him, he would let her and appreciate it, unable to decide whether it made him feel uneasy or as close to heaven as a sinner like him was allowed to be, but not once did he actively seek out the salvation that dwelt in her arms, and even if he'd eventually find both their bodies tangled up in the morning, he'd carefully remove himself before Rose would notice anything – It helped that she was anything but a morning person.

To go any further would require the exchange of a sentence he had been struggling to spit out for a long time now, with most of his attempts remaining futile.

He had assured her that she was special to him, that he would never leave him, as painful as it may be to see a beloved person return to dust – except for the beloved part.

He had been close to say it before letting himself fall into a bottomless pit, closer than he'd been earlier when he told her that he'd more or less survive settling down if it was with her.

Nonetheless he had stopped himself, trying to convince himself that she understood that she would not need those words.

He believed in her, of that, he was sure, but the very same words that he proudly spat at his enemies stuck to his tongue when he tried to tell them to her face, be it in the lowest of all whispers.

Some part of him kept telling him that he could tell her any time he wanted, that the right moment would just come along someday within the swirl of restless adventure that their life had become.

He knew should not have allowed himself to hold on to these illusions – after all, he was very aware that their days were numbered from the start, that she'd age at least ten times faster than him, and that she wasn't going to regenerate. Her mother had shot him odd looks for looking much older than her, but she'd probably still live to see that situation reversed, if he should be granted to keep Rose at his side for this long, that is.

Still, the thought of that was simply too painful for him to bear, the burden of the implications that he might spent millennia mourning her too heavy for him to carry, so he chose to do what he always did when something went beyond of what he could handle – run away. He shunned these thoughts, even after the Beast told them that their journey together came to an end, he forbade himself to think of it, and tried his best to just live it out until the end – there was no way he could avert the unavoidable, was there?

It felt hard to believe that anything could separate them as long as she kept smiling at him like she did, allowing him to glisten in her orbit.

He had come close to losing her several times, there had even been two instances where he had been sure to have lost her, and he found himself regretting is failure to say that one sentence each and every time.

He should have learned from that and told her how he felt while he still had a chance.

But he did not, and when they walked out of the TARDIS that one, fateful day the Cybermen attacked, he had no reason to expect that she would be ripped from him at the end of the day. It had started like an average, normal day – by their standards, at least.

Putting her life in danger to pull that lever, probably saving two universes in the process, she lost her grip and fell – it was not that she slipped out of his hands, oh no.

She had never been within his reach in first place, both literally and figuratively.

One again, his old sins from the Time War had caught up to him, sending him Daleks to deny him the happiness he had long since lost all rights to.

The pounding of his hearts told him that he was still alive, but he felt like he died.

There was nothing but a white, solid wall before him, nothing to jump into, nothing to stroke, nothing to reach out to, nothing to pull or to beat, absolutely nothing to direct his emotions at.

Nothing but white, artless nothingness.

No ash to take into his fingers, no billionaire no curse at, just… nothing.

Nothing he could do nothing he could change, nothing he could fix.

Vast, void emptiness, blank vacancy, just a nondescript spot on a white, featureless wall.

No sound, no sight, no taste, no feelings.

Stark white before him, and stark whiteness inside of him.

Where had they gone, these hearts of him?

All he could feel was numbness, his usually so soulful eyes devoid of any light as well as any twinkle they might have previously contained, as if the soul that once shone behind them had just been ripped out.

She left a bleeding, gaping hole as wide as the one she had filled, such complete destruction that he was not even able to feel pain.

He just stopped, following some deep, primal impulse to hold onto something tangible, pressing his face and palms to the very wall she was probably punching right now, literal worlds apart.

She was alive, but that was nothing he deserved credit for.

It had been a parallel version of her father, not the same Pete Tyler he had met during the early days of their travels, and yet as capable of saving her when he could not.

Every sensation felt like the vague echo of a faded dream, even the wall beneath his palm felt unreal.

He had never told her.

She would never know.

He could not accept that.

There was nothing in this universe that could equal the value of her touch.

No matter what price he paid, be it a still-burning, dying sun, it could never amount to one final sip of sweet, welcoming, much yearned-for death from the goblet of her soft lips.

Bad Wolf Bay – Why did the name of this place have to remind him of each and every moment they had shared, of all she had done for him, all that she was to him.

Oh why did it have to remind him of the site of their first kiss which had turned a torn battlefield into paradise, and death into a purifying sacrament, now that he was barred of as much as taking in a last impression of her fragrance to commit it to memory?

This could hardly be called a proper farewell, no matter how far she had travelled, or how much energy he was used.

It was not to be.

He could understand why he would deserve such punishment, but why her?

Why did she have to make do with this tasteless, loveless parody of a farewell?

She did not know what to say, urgent not to waste a second of their last moments, and nonetheless at a complete loss.

"I love you!" she said, whimpering, her face red and covered in tears, her hands not knowing where to go, her hair whipped by her wind, all her beauty distorted by her sadness, unable to conceal her absolute helplessness.

This was a radical break, the drawing of the last line, the point at which the bridge just stopped, unfinished, in the middle of the ocean, the end of all hope.

As a scientist, he had made the experience that many seemed to think of reason and feelings as two antitheses that should not mix and to see love as something that could never be expressed in numbers – but in this very instant, he felt that nothing could describe the sheer bleakness of his disheartening situation better than mathematical terms:

This was the maximum in the graph of his life, the point from which everything couldn't go anywhere but downwards, the point after which he would no longer have any hope to find his one true love, because all that had already happened, it was past.

What a cruel word that was… past.

In the end, Rose and he had been like a function and its asymptote, always moving closer and closer towards each other, but never quite touching. They were like parallel, no, skew lines, never meant to come together.

They were like a graph and its tangent, only allowed to touch the reason for their existence once before disappearing back into the ceaseless infinity they had come from.

This was all they would ever have, all there would ever be – and his lips still kept sticking to each other, struggling to form words even when there was nothing left to lose.

There was so much he wanted to tell her, long, intricately-written novels and weighty tomes of songs and odes and dedications, telling her of the countless ways she had saved her, of how beautiful she was and how she made him fell within.

As far as he knew, there was only one sentence capable of conveying all this.

Now, he had endured the most horrible and creative forms of torture and withstood the most mind-numbing of ordeals, but he had yet to be subjected to anything that could match the effort it took him to get his mouth to move.

"Quite so... Well, I guess this is my last chance to say it…. Rose Tyler-"

A single tear trickled down his face.

He was… really going to say it.

And she would never know.

Ironically, he only started to refer to her as his girlfriend their relationship as them having been "together" following the parting of their ways, as if to make up for his failure to hurry up and say the words she deserved to hear.

He knew that she was gone and would never return to his arms again, but at the same time, her presence still lingered above him like a pressure that was threatening to crush him and didn't allow him to breathe.

She left without packing, with all her things still scattered across the TARDIS, filling the air with her scent and never ceasing to lead his thoughts back to the hole she had left in his life – The deep-fried chips he'd kept in storage lacked a person that was infatuated with that simple dish enough to "destroy" the sheer quantity of them before their expiration date, the heart-shaped pillow she'd left on his couch had no one whose elbow they could have supported and her blue jacket left in the console room was devoid of anyone to fill it out.

He did not know what he would have done if Donna hadn't showed up in this very instant.

(Oh good old Donna! There were only three people amongst the endless zillions that resided in this universe he'd ever called his best friend, and she was amongst them. (The others being the Master and Sarah Jane – oh how he longed to go back to that faraway happiness.) She always knew exactly how to make him smile, how to cheer him up and how to show him the right way.)

Busy with fruitless attempts to escort the redhead who had apparently randomly appeared in his TARDIS back to her wedding, he could escape the reality of what had just happened until the next quiet moment – the unending torrent of complaints springing from her mouth made brooding, or thinking in general, very hard.

However, this just intensified his pain as the reality of his loss had to catch up with him at the party that had one been meant for Donna's wedding – at a party of all places!

What lonelier place, what sorrier state was there than to be surrounded by dancing, happy people, when you had no one to dance with?

Everyone here seemed to have someone – Donna, that friend of her she had been bickering with… only he was standing at the side, feeling like a relic one again, well aware that he did not belong here, not to this happy crowd, not to this place nor this time.

There was nowhere he could go – once, there had been that small apartment in the Powell Estate, where he'd always be welcome, like he had been on that Christmas eve – now, he'd landed on Christmas once again, and the only thing waiting for him as a field of debris that had ironically spread in the shape of an infinity symbol around a pair of binary stars – and even there he'd always felt out of place, even when that rubble was still a planet.

If Rose had been here, he would have been busy finding out whether his dancing skills that always appeared to be in a Schrödinger-ish state of quantum superposition felt like existing today, laughing, talking and having fun. Now, he was starting to notice how tiring the flashing lights and colours could be, how hot the warmth from all these dancing humans made this room, and how the lyrics of the song playing in the background spoke of a recently lost love and the wish for a safe, comfortable place to return to, despite what its fast, bombastic tunes might suggest.

It seemed like this particular song had been written only for the sole purpose of wearing him out – and a similar thing could be said about that man who was spinning his attractive girlfriend across the dance floor – as her dancing partner pulled her in, her golden tresses fell in a way that made the picture before his eyes melt into a very different one, where it was him standing there with a blond girl in his arms, only that it was a different girl, with simpler clothes and somewhat shorter hair which, in spite of the difference in length, fell exactly like the strands he was actually seeing when she fell into his arms in that shining white corridor on New Earth.

Before he knew it, his eyes were following the movement of the joyous dancers, mesmerized my their harmonic, synchronized steps as his mind drifted further back, separating itself from the sad and empty man that was observing what he could not have to place itself somewhere next to a much younger Jack who was torn between feeling somewhat left out and staring at the assets of the two lovers dancing around the central console, parts of which were lighting up in tune with the music, as if the ship itself were celebrating with them, only for those visions of better days to dissolve, leaving him in a world where he was the one who had no one to dance with and where each and every second that flowed past him appeared to be hell-bent of convincing him that he would never be happy again.

Not just a party, but a wedding, too.

Now he was imagining Rose in that long, white pocketless dress.

With her being the hopeless romantic she was, she'd probably…

No, he should stop that.

There was no use thinking of things that were impossible now, if they ever were possible in the first place, that is.

It was just not fair.

Or maybe it was perfectly fair – After all, none of the Time Lords he wiped out of the sky ever got to see their loved ones again, did they?

Maybe all this was just exactly what he deserved.

Perhaps love was simply something he was never meant to receive.

It was only just for him to feel the guilt for what he had done in each of every moment of his existence, with no smiles to distract him.

Lying in her bed long after her scent had faded from this room, he wondered why he could not simply walk away and move on like he had done it so many times before – it was not the first time he lost someone. He had been sleeping alone all his life, why did it suddenly come to bother him now? Because he didn't know the alternative before? Because he had gotten used to having her at his side? Because she had been the love of his life? Because of what she had said when they both had come across Sarah Jane, about how she did not want him to simply forget her and never tell anyone about her? To make up for his inability to fulfil her wishes?

Or was it that sleeping alone simply reminded him of how empty his life had become?

Yes, he had lost important people before, including his entire race – but he'd pulled through that particular loss because of her. It was her who had given him the strength to go on, so how could he as much as try to carry on without her?

His pain was caused by the loss of the only thing that could have alleviated it, as he had built his strategies to deal with these dark thoughts after the war around her.

In all these Situations he had come to rely on her, he was now feeling completely lost, always wondering what she would do if she were hear, what she would say, what she'd tell him to do – He no longer trusted his own judgement after what he did in the war, but as long as he had her, he could be sure that she'd tell him if he was doing something wrong.

In a way, she had been his only compass on these rough voyages, and now, he was drifting aimlessly once again, and the hole she had left wouldn't close, as if her presence were still lingering around him, if only as a pale shadow within his own mind that kept haunting even in those months he spent living as a human and thought her to be nothing but a dream – He spent hours working on an elaborate dawning of her, underlining the word "gone" in the messy writing that surrounded the picture after he was done with it, not quite understanding why a dream could make him feel that melancholic.

He needed her – it was as if he had a book before him, opened on the last page – there were no more words to read in the book, just like there would be no new memories of Rose, but he was not yet able to close that book that could give him nothing more, much like he hadn't been able to finish that one sentence.

Still, while it may be impossible to live without bad things happening to one sooner or later, the same could be said about good things.

At first, it was harsh and he'd feel reminded of Rose's absence by the littlest of things, but even if it took him years, eventually, to his own surprise, he found himself mentioning her name almost casually, without a cloud of gloom filling the room immediately.

He probably had to thank Donna and Martha for that, he didn't think he'd have been able to at least sort of find his way again without their patience and understanding. Yeah, he still missed her a lot and he doubted he'd ever stop to miss her – she'd taken a piece of him that she'd always keep – but after all, he was still alive, and so was she. And she'd probably be inconsolable if she'd known that the thought of her caused him nothing but sadness.

She was always as protective of him as he was of her and wouldn't have wanted him to be depressed, much less because of her.

So he decided that her name would not be the one that would bring him to tears, but the one that would keep him fighting and living on, because that's what she had done: Saved his life. Even the sadness he'd felt was only proof of the good she had done him and how important she'd been to him.

He'd be OK, or at least he'd… keep functioning. He was not done for, just a little damaged.

And then, she returned.

After he'd spent years trying to tell himself that she was gone, having just about adjusted to a world without her, all these feelings were stirred up once again, as he saw her standing in this empty, disaster-wrecked street, next to that church that was probably as old as him, in this cold and dark night.

Funny how her mere presence could turn the most desolate places into paradise.

This place was as good as any fairytale meadow because his eyes only rested on her alone – his surroundings might as well just have ceased to exist in the instant he saw the impossible.

Her, just standing there with a huge, improvised weapons, but an outfit that did not look significantly more expensive than what she used to wear back in the old days, the small frame of a golden-haired, smiling girl that could easily have been overlooked, and yet, was the keeper of the light that turned this night into a day and held the eyes that promised salvation.

He could not recall when he started running towards her, but run he did, as fast as he could, not away from something, no, for once in his life, he was running back – Back into her arms, following the thread of his memories, back to the source of warmth, comfort and hope, to the person that kept turning up in his life like the refrain of a song.

He almost flew over the ground, his eyes unwaveringly fixated on her and only her, not paying the least attention to the abandoned cars, bicycles and pushchairs, the planets in the sky, or – and this was the crucial part – the rapidly approaching Dalek.

After all of these years, one of these blobs in polycarbide amour had finally managed to aim properly, and it had to be now of all times.

As his feet betrayed him and she rushed to his side, kneeling down beside him, he could not help but notice how the laser beam had not been enough to remove the broad smile from his face.

As long as she was there… as long as she was fine… everything was all right, as close to all right as it got.

He could have just died there, with her next to him, her golden hair hanging downwards as she bent forwards to touch the edges of his face, finally reunited with his love, and judging by the numbness spreading through his body, he would die, at least this version of him, the one that had been made for her, the skinny individual with the tendency to say "Alons-y".

Initially, he was fine with that – he knew that everything had its price, and even if he had the right to do so, he could not have thought of anything more.

His euphoria at seeing her again paralyzed him more than the injury from the Dalek Laser did, this emotion with no discernable features, as if it was… just light. An unearthly bliss that made him unable to move because whatever his mind might say, his hearts would not find any motivation to do so, for he felt like he already had everything he wanted or needed, and thus, nothing could have made him any happier than he was.

He could just have closed his eyes and waited for the light to devour him, but there was one single sensation that stopped his consciousness from just drifting away – the warmth of a couple of teardrops that had sprung from the anguished, pleading face of the inconsolable girl holding him as she begged him to not to leave her after she came all this way for him.

Her words and gestures alone would have been enough to cause him to regenerate, piercing him like a sword, as she once again asked him for something he couldn't give her.

It was not like he could just will himself not to die… He did not want to – if he had that choice, he would spent the rest of his lifetime in the form that she had loved and die like this, preferably just a few seconds after her – after her, so she would not have to go through the pain of losing a loved one ever again – Oh, he could simply not bear to see her in pain!

Somehow seeing her shed tears was much more excruciating than what this Dalek laser was doing to him.

This was simply not fair… he wanted to stay with her, she wanted to stay with him, why couldn't they? Why wouldn't the very fate that had brought them together let them?

It seemed as if happiness really was something he was not meant to have, only being allowed short glimpses of it so it could be torn from him to torture him.

But why Rose? Why was she being punished along with him, what had she done?

Why was he forced to leave her all alone and crying again?

No, that wasn't quite the right question.

There was no use in blaming anything on "Destiny" – It was his own fault.

It was him who could not stop the flow of her tears; he was, despite all his skills and all his knowledge, the one who always made her sad.

Thus, in one single moment of weakness, the simple wish to please her got the better of him. Or no, it didn't – there was no use in denying that it had been nothing quite so innocent, but merely the selfish desire of a flawed man to end his own feelings of helplessness, mixed with the good old fear of being alone.

Anyhow, the point was that they caused him to do something he shouldn't have just to extend his own life, a sin he had ever so often reprimanded in others – He should have known better than to expect this not to have any consequences, having acted as the agent of punishment for many who had done potentially dangerous things without really thinking about the consequences just to stay breathing for a little longer. He had seen what had happened to Lazarus, Lumic and the like, and while he wasn't quite at that level, he should really have known better than to outstay his welcome on this world – He should have been aware of the price range of such deeds – and that it was not always the sinner himself who had to pay for them.

Part of him still tried to justify himself by redirecting his self-hatred at the Daleks, exactly how he had done it before Rose stepped into his life, disgracing the efforts she put into the lost cause that was him, trying to convince himself that he could not possibly have foreseen that Donna would end up touching the container with his severed hand, but inside, he knew that this was just a denial that had become necessary to keep himself from ending his pitiful existence with his own hands.

For Donna to save all of creation, only to be forced to go back to the obnoxious, cold, bitterly unhappy person she had been before, after having blossomed into a kindhearted heroine who had, in a way, been much wiser than him, always guiding him when he strayed from the right path or simply missed the obvious, having to kill his best friend (And killing was just the friendliest way to say it – when he saw Donna returned to her old self, as if all their time together, all her downright legendary deeds had never ever happened, after he had once again made her into a faceless nobody completely unable to notice her own greatness, after he had reduced the most important woman in all creation to the self-hating mess she had no reason to be, he honestly felt like he had just raped her.)with his very own hands was the cruellest punishment he could possibly have received, and once again, he was pulling innocents down with him – for what?

A few months more for him to spend in this body. The most horrible months he had endured, ever since the Time War, if not the worst ever, cheaply bought, no, stolen life that barely deserved to be called a life at all, months spent in sin, bereft of company, guidance or as much as a will to live, wishing he would just drop dead already during every single second and yet, at the same time, fearing the approaching death that had been prophesized to him, further poisoning these restless days – he had known that living at a cost like this made life meaningless, and yet, he had pulled donna into the abyss with him – he almost did the same thing to Rose when she looked into the time vortex, he did this to everyone he touched, just like Davros had said it! …Joan said it, too – and so did Donna.

He had turned Martha into a soldier, and not just her – Her, Jack, Sarah Jane, all of them were on these screens, ready to sacrifice themselves for someone as undeserving as him – He only wanted to help, but all he did was bring Death with him, and Death to those around him… He had wanted all these people to live their life to the fullest, to realize what they could do with it – not to throw it away.

And the worst was, Rose casually complimented the threats made by her fellow companions. He looked at her, carrying that large, black gun with her, and couldn't help but realize that he had corrupted her, too.

He could still feel traces of the vortex' energy on her, it had been enough for even that werewolf to notice it, she showed neither fear nor defiance to her surroundings, having become a confident warrior defending this planet, perhaps a little too confident - if Donna's descriptions of her actions in her parallel timeline were to be trusted, she even had something unearthly about her, as if she had a deeper understanding of this world and its mechanics as you'd expect it from a slayer of both gods and demons.

He had already damned her once and he was close to doing it again, to… manipulate her into cheerfully walking to her doom like Martha, Jack and Sarah Jane were doing it now…

"How many more?" the robotic rasp of the creator of the Daleks asked – He did not know if the blind man's optical implant allowed him to see subtle things like his slightly trembling facial muscles struggling to keep his expression under control, but if he did see them, they were probably enough of an answer to him – Just naming the most recent victims of his irresponsible actions amounted to quite a long list – Jabe, Gwyneth, Lynda-with-an-y (Apparently, just flirting with him was the equivalent of sealing one's death warrant), the controller of satellite 5, Angela Prince of the Preachers, Robert McLeish, this entire LINDA-Group, the Face of Boe, the many that were killed when he hid from the family of blood, Chantho, the passengers of the Titanic, Astrid, this Rattigan Boy… He didn't even know the Name of the woman that had sacrificed herself on Midnight! – And Jenny, too. He was not even capable of sparing his own Daughter! Just after he'd gotten to know her – he'd only had her for a few hours and spent most of those treating her like air! Oh, and these were only the most recent ones, there had been so many, so many before… Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric… Countless of them in the past, and another sizeable amount still waiting for their cruel fates in the future – He would not even improve, he had seen it… in the Library, he had made this archaeologist, River Song, do the same thing.

And as of that moment, he'd still been unaware of what he'd do to Adelaide, or how the Master had already doomed himself when he approached the kid that was meant to destroy the planet they lived on.

No more.

No more of this, never again.

When he made this decision, Donna had yet to meet her fate, but he'd already known that it was awaiting her. He decided that he'd never ever take any human with him, not ever again.

Originally, he'd started picking up young girls because he missed his Granddaughter – whom he had never returned to her parents after dragging her through a life of danger and isolation. It was his stubbornness that had prevented her from going to school in a time and place she had loved – It was her who had opted to go with him when he left Gallifrey, but he'd never once asked himself whether he had the right to subject that brilliant, but sensitive, timid young girl to the horrors of the universe just so he would not be alone – And he had failed to ask himself that question in all the years that had followed, with all those different companions at his side – The Valeyard had accused him of putting these people in danger, but he had neither taken him seriously, nor had he stopped to pick up people for the sole purpose of putting them in danger.

Now, the answer to that question he had not even considered relevant over the course of all those years, seemed all too obvious:

He did not.

He did not have the right to just… acquire these people.

Solitude was good enough for him.

Seeing his ship filled to the brim with his friends as they towed the earth itself back to its proper place, all he could think of was how much he wanted to put as many kilometres as possible between himself and everyone in this room.

Away with them!

He wanted them to stay away from him, so he could never harm them again, so none of them would ever have to suffer because of him.

Because that's what he did, what he had always done, contrary to his ideals, all he fought for, all he wanted to do – He brought death, decay, destruction and corruption with him and he could not help but do so because he was corrupt himself, rotten to his core.

So he separated himself from them, because he wanted the best for them.

For their own good.

He put them as far away from him as he could – Including Rose.

Especially Rose.

He would part from her, because he loved her – It would not be the first time he did so, but this time, he would ensure that not even absorbing the Time Vortex could lead her back to him, he would put her far, far away from him, where he could never reach her, no matter how tempted he might feel or what despair might befall him – She was simply so much more honest, so much purer and so much better than him, he would not dare to put his own happiness before hers ever again – and so, he gave her exactly what she wanted.

He knew she would not allow him to leave her "for her own safety" ever again, so he needed to tell her something else – so he said that his half-human duplicate needed to be "neutralized" because of what he had done to the Dakeks.

That was a lie, as much as he wished it wasn't – With the knowledge of what he would soon have to do to Donna in the back of his mind, he could not bring himself to care about what had happened to these wretched killermachines, no matter how much he tried – when he next encountered them, he hit one with a wrench and felt utterly defeated when he failed to wipe them out for good.

Too many had died because of his mercy, because he let them live – He had long since run out of patience. The true reason why he was leaving Rose with the duplicate was something he could not tell her, lest she refuse to let him go.

She had always been very protective of him, after all, always dedicated to mend his aching hearts… now it was time that he did something for her, and saved her from the ancient, inhuman abomination that was him, more a disease than a person, not quite different from the Daleks he'd once likened to an unstoppable virus.

He could never give her, what she deserved – someone who could spend of his life with her, who could offer her exactly what she was offering him.

He couldn't – but this duplicate could. He would age, just like her, and he'd never upset her or… creep her out with anything like regeneration or regrown hands, while still giving her the feeling of being needed – Ironically, the clone had picked up one of his old Jumpers to wear it beneath the blue suit. And the duplicate also came from Donna, possessing some of her personality traits, which logically meant that he might be lacking some of his own traits – and there were good chances that some of his clumsiness at expressing his emotions had been replaced with Donna's straightforwardness, so he could give Rose all the sweet words and intimate gestures she deserved.

This was the least he could do for her after all the trouble he had put her through.

When she asked him how that one unfinished sentence would have ended, he was overwhelmed by the irony – had he been a different kind of man, and had this not been happening to him, he might have started laughing madly.

He had failed to tell her on what he thought was his last chance, and would have gladly given his life for a chance two more seconds to say those three words, and now that he had gotten a chance to say him, he realized that he must not.

Speaking those words now would only be selfish and cowardly, not to mention unfair, to both the clone whose feelings were probably not to different from his own and wanted Rose to accept him, and to her, whom he would leave here without any hope of their paths ever knowing again – that sentence would only serve to confuse her and cause her more anxieties that he already had.

So, all he could give her was a sad smile.

"…Does it need saying?"

After he's paved the way for him, his duplicate was the one to complete the sentence, receiving a deep, open-mouthed kiss in return as she wrapped her arms around him, appearing to feel the relief of a traveller who had finally reached the save heaven at the end of his journey – a feeling he was never meant to know again.

In all of his life, the only thing close to a real home he'd ever had was the heart of this beautiful young woman before him who was currently in the arms of another man.

And this was only what he wanted.

Still, even if he had arranged things to bring about this outcome, as much as he had planned for this, somehow he had never truly believed that she'd actually chose someone else over him, an "easier" lover, without all the… alien weirdness and some of the less than pleasant aspects of his personality, someone who'd whisper in her ear.

He thought she loved him, not in spite of who he was, but because of it.

She probably did, but she was only human… she was probably tired after all these years she had yearned to be with him again, how could he possibly blame her for wanting a sense of normalcy, and reliability…?

Still… He had been ready to take her as she was, to have her stay at his side as long as she could, even if it meant enduring the torture of watching her wither and die before his eyes.

Maybe he had meant as much to her as she did to him at the beginning, in this instant where she had seen the world exactly like him, when they had kissed for the first time, but now, he was beginning to doubt whether he would ever love again.

His hearts, which were, at this point, mainly held together by atrocious quantities of Duct Tape, finally burst apart, shattering into many sparkling, falling little shards that viciously cut through his very being as they fell through his body, finally embedding themselves in the inner side of his feet.

He had seen enough to know that he didn't belong here anymore – Now, there was not a single place in this world where he belonged.

The entire event with Donna only strengthened his conviction – No more companions. Never again. He could not bear anymore losses.

Also, no more relationships with humans.

Rose had neither been the first, nor the last citizen of earth he'd fallen for, but she was the only one so far who'd come close to being his long-term girlfriend so far – and after all was said and done, their relationship had left him in despair.

He did not think that he would as much as survive it if something like that were ever to happen to him again. He just couldn't bear that either.

No companions and no more falling in love with humans.

No more.

He just didn't have this strength anymore.

Oh, what a pitiful, woeful existence he had become, tired of living, and yet afraid of dying, crawling through this world to evade a fate that would eventually seek him out anyway.

He'd brought this hopeless solitude on himself – technically, he had no right to complain.

But he still did it, shouting at the world and its unfairness, doing more than one thing he shouldn't have, horrible deeds he'd never be able to make up for.

He was then quickly "rewarded" by getting to see another of his closest friend again – dirty, dishevelled, and gnawing at human bones, torturing him by alternating between bouts of madness and moment of almost shocking lucidity – the Master struck him down only to catch him, just to let him fall to the ground again.

Here and there, the boy he'd known from his academy days or the brilliant, worthy opponent from the days before the war would shine through, only to give way to more mad ramblings or helpless pleas as the throbbing in his head would interrupt any coherent thoughts he might've had. For all he had done, not even he deserved to just… dissolve like that, it was just too horrible a sight to witness – The sentence that had cut the deepest was his clearly clearly reproachful "I had estates." – Not only did it show that he was thinking about how his life could have turned out if he'd chosen a different path, it also proved that not even someone like The Master could remain fully unaffected by the destruction of his homeworld – And the anger that these words were laced with couldn't possibly be addressed at anyone but the man who had destroyed that world…

It was clear that the Master was too far gone to be saved, but he was horrifyingly aware of his sorry state, and frightened of what he had become – He'd be appalled.

If not even his friend from his academy days, but the refined, cultured, vain man he'd had the occasional swordfight with could see himself like that, he probably wouldn't hesitate to put his future self out of his misery.

It was ironic, how this incarnation – He was not sure whether this was technically the fourteenth or fifteenth – had soft, round features reminiscent of those he'd displayed in his first one, but the amber eyes identical to those from the unit days. His failed resurrection seemed to have drenched both his hair and his skin in bleach, but hadn't hindered the growth of his ever-so-rubbish-looking facial hair, tough it did not quite resemble the neatly-trimmed bond-villain-beard he'd worn the last time they had debated about seeing or owning the universe – that time, it had been the Master who had asked him to join him, offering him half the universe, so to speak – this time, it was the other way around, and equally fruitless.

In the end, it was the Master who ended up saving his life, tough, going down with the Lord President and his followers in his stead.

That, however, did not mean that he'd escape just like that – Oh no, not by far.

…Another of these things that reminded him of the old days at unit, or more precisely, what had ended them. Several Sieverts blown into his face as so-called reward for his efforts to preserve the continued existence of this world.

His time had come, and in his desperation, he just wished to see all of them one more time, to take their faces in and capture the way they had looked when seen through this particular set of eyes, showing himself to them like a distant, ghostly apparition in a way that only a doomed man was capable of.

He saved Rose for last, in the last of those fruitless attempts to prove to her that she was not just one of many to him (Not that he'd regarded any of those who'd come before her that way, it was just that she'd been the one to doubt it)in ways she'd never found out about.

It was only fitting that the very first person he had seen with these chocolate brown eyes should also become the very last, on what was to become both their first and their last meeting – He had no way of going where she was now, and even visiting her past self felt was no different from regarding someone on the faraway side of a precipice, far beyond his reach – The result of this last meeting was but a foregone conclusion: He knew that she'd never draw any connections between some random allegedly drunk man who'd addressed a few nonsensical lines at her and the eccentric extraterrestrial she was to meet a few months after this. He was not allowed to do anything… relevant here, and neither would he risk it –having been reminded of the disastrous outcome of messing with established historical events by a recent tragedy, he was painfully aware that she was unreachable to him, no matter how close and how tangible she appeared to be – and he had to make sure it stayed that way, deliberately hiding in the shadows, lest any of the wonderful times their had spent with each other be rewritten.

Finding himself in that situation, he suddenly understood how River Song must've felt – It really was like looking at an old picture – this wasn't the determined defender of earth he'd left on Bad Wolf Bay, this was still the innocent, simple shop girl he'd once fallen in love with, living a not-really-bad-but-less-than-happy, monotonous life as a dropout thrown away by society. Seeing her like this made him suddenly aware of how she had aged, or rather, mainly matured in the last few years – how old was she now? Already nineteen, or still eighteen? She was but a child, and yet, already beamed with that radiance of hers, capable of turning even this council estate in a brighter place.

He could not help but admire her kindness and compassionate nature as he always did when their paths crossed when he saw her comforting her somewhat lonely mother.

(She was right in that respect – Jackie would find someone, to him, she already had.)

Of course, someone like Rose would not simply walk past a man who was obviously barely able to stand, even if she wasn't meant to meet that someone yet – Talking to her had not been part of his plan, he should have been able to tell that she'd not just walk a man who was obviously alone and in pain – that's why he'd fallen for her, after all.

If only one of his wishes could be granted, he would chose to lie down next to her and rest at her side until darkness claimed him; He would weakly shower her hand with kisses and refuse to let go on it before he'd drawn his last breath, inhaling her scent one last time.

If he had a choice, he'd tell her how beautiful she was, how honoured he felt to have been allowed into her life, and how she made him feel within.

Alas, that would be no use – She hadn't even met him yet, nothing he could say without threatening his past and her future would have any meaning to her, nothing he could say would be more than the rambling of a complete stranger.

There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to do, but she wouldn't understand any of it. This had been his last chance, and yet, hardly a chance at all.

He would die without telling her those three words.

He would go and die now so a person that Rose would never recognize could take his place, and one day, the existence that called itself "The Doctor" would come to an end altogether, without having ever finished that sentence… but that was fine with him.

Just getting to see her smile once more as she wished him a happy new year had been worth coming here.

He was content to return her smile and leave her a small hint of the glorious days to come.

In these fleeting moments that remained, there was simply nothing more he could have done with these so blessed, so damned, so unwavering feelings of love.

* * *

So, that's it! Now, stay tuned for the next chapter, starring the wonderful Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson a.k.a Madame de Pompadour, 09: [The Open Door]


	9. 09: The Open Door

Disclaimer: I sadly don't own Doctor who.

* * *

09: [The Open Door]

As he held the letter between his fingers, there was not even any sweat to soak the yellowish 18th century paper.

His facial features appeared almost impassive as he glanced along those artfully written lines, imagining how her always sovereign, always composed voice would accentuate them, tired and worn-out by the ravages of time, diligently choosing each of these distinguished words, arranging them as one would expect it from someone who had dedicated her life to art and beauty, even when all of that beauty had long since abandoned her, scared away by sickness that was in return chased by the pallor of death.

As he read her iteration of those words he'd said to her mere hours ago, hours that had turned into a lifetime for her, and felt like an eternity to him, back when they still held a meaning only known to the two of them, before the wheels of time had ground them into an empty promise, he found himself unable to display neither shock nor anger, nor tears – He just shut down.

That's just how tired and dried-out he felt.

Transiency – It did not even manage to surprise him anymore, he had almost expected it to strike. It menacing warnings stuck to his feet like a shadow, following him everywhere he went, even if there was no pompous baroque architecture to remind him of it in every instant – over the course of his travels, he had visited empires that had lasted for millienia, both as they had sprouted out of the ground like mushrooms, and as they had been reduced to the sands they had sprung from, civilisations rising and falling around him as he stood there, watching like some sort of ancient monument.

Whenever he saw Rose's smile, he'd be reminded of how small and ephemeral she was, how easy it would be for him to smash her to pieces if he wanted to – The same was probably true for Mickey the Idiot. Only recently, he'd met Sarah Jane again – It was certainly good to see her, investigating on her own, not having allowed the last decades to wrest any of her virtues from her grip. It only confirmed that he had done something right when he chose to take her with him all that time ago – but these years, they had showed.

Not as much as they could have, actually, she still looked pretty much like did when they were both younger, with just a few wrinkles here and there that you'd miss in the right light, but enough to remind him that she wasn't forever.

He was confronted with death and destruction every other day, and came dangerously close to his own physical annihilation at a similar frequency – So how could he possibly forget about death's ever-present looming shadow in a place like a wrecked starship drifting alone through the black, endless void, or the intricately decorated rooms of a baroque palace – He knew about the background that had inspired the art of that time period, the wars, plagues and crop failures that had ravaged Europe, wiping entire cities off the map, suddenly making everyone aware of their own mortality.

He'd never been particularly interested in that time period, as he preferred functionality to fancy decorations ("No, Rose, we're _not_ scanning for alien technology, yes, it _is_ a screwdriver, and I'm proud of it.") and it didn't really have much to tell him – "Memento Mori"? "Carpe diem"? He was probably the last person in the universe who needed to be told to live each day to the fullest or to be mindful of death – The time of revolutions that had followed had always entranced him, for even as he did find the atrocities that had been committed appalling, he still found it somewhat fascinating, on a purely intellectual level: How could people who were, by their own claims, motivated by reason, result to such unreasonable actions? Yeah, that was something he couldn't understand, and therefore, something interesting, but he didn't need everything around him telling him something he already knew.

The huge paintings all cross the oval ceilings, the neatly-odered gardens where every leaf had its place, the little details on the walls that probably took an incredible time to make, the mirrors and tapestries he used as portals, of these were icons of short-lived, luxuriant grandiosity that would not last, and those who had built it had probably known it, indulging in extravagant festivities and the pleasures of the flesh, living their lives to the fullest _because_ they knew of the futility of their actions, dancing to cascading melodies or listening to poets reciting their meticulously structured creations speaking of death, sensuality and unfulfilled love often in the same breath, describing the endless paradoxed of life with hyperbolic, ebullient words.

Even the droids had looked like walking, ticking vanitas still-lifes – there was certainly some pathos to be found in the way that they had just… stopped after being left without a purpose.

The crown of these fugacious temptations of life, however, was her, wrapped in a new set of lush decorations each time he saw her, her long hair, but a waterfall of flowing, liquid gold suiting the poems sung about it, polished to shine to please the ego of an absolutist king even though it would be cut off one day, to turn into something baleful and disgusting to be disposed of, just as the rest of her body did when she died, displayed itself in a new hairstyle each time, each one more elaborate and ornate than the last, her chest, barely fitting into her dresses, rising and falling with the pulsation of her life, resembling solid, sparkling honey in the radiance of the candles illuminating it, was to be found wrapped in more expensive silk each time, her robes decorated with golden embroidery that filled them to the brim, accentuated her feminine curves that were already sinfully lavish on their own, the cape-like accessories she wore accentuating her natural regal elegance, adorning her first in the white of innocence, then the fresh blue of a spring breeze, the sun's yellow, the red of life and finally, the crowning gold and silver of the stars, matching the priceless jewellery on her wrists, ears and neck, and those bows that begged him to unpack her.

Yet, even as her captivating breasts teased him each time she exhaled, it was impossible to miss that they simply did not look like they did last time he saw them – The years barely showed on her enchanting face, it was the abrupt transition, the skipping of multiple years that made their traces apparent, the flesh starting to sag ever so slightly, as if suddenly befallen by an unappeasable longing to return to the earth it was born from, the most extraordinary being turning into the most ordinary dust that would no longer receive the worship the tin god of her beauty had inspired, except by the weeping skies that had mourned her final departure from Versailles.

He should have expected that this was not meant to be – She had her place in history.

All there was left for him to do was to close down the last time windows, the last open door that now led to nowhere, the portal through which he'd both met and parted with her.

Just one little buzz from his sonic screwdriver, and the flames died down, like they had never been there, leaving that ship whose repair droids had chosen to take her head before her time for a reason he'd never find out to drift aimlessly through the vastness of space for all of eternity, empty and forgotten.

Just the thought of it made him feel cold and burned-out like the ash in that fireplace.

He let himself sink into the seat before the console – if he tried to recall the time he'd spent with her, his memories showed him but surprisingly short individual scenes and moments, making him wonder where that sense of magic and intimacy had come from, or why he felt as if he'd spent a lifetime with her – It was much easier to explain why _she _had felt that way, for each of their meetings had been followed by years for her to replay it in her memories, to muse about each and every word they had exchanged, to embellish and continue their encounters in her dreams.

Funny, how easy it was to become an integral part of someone's life, how little it took to deeply influence a person – On his travels, he tried his best to show the people he encountered what a fascinating place full of infinite possibilities this world could be – nonetheless, he rarely came to witness the results.

These words he said to her, about listening to reason, his offer to go and pick a star for them to visit, these were probably not the only empty promises he'd made over the years…

The one he recently gave to Rose, about not leaving her, had probably been another one of those.

But what was he to do? Should he forbid himself every ounce of optimism?

Contrary to Mr. Mickey's opinion, he was anything _but_ an intergalactic ladykiller, and did in fact not really know how these sorts of things worked – all he had done was… well, what he usually did. There was a weird phenomenon going on, and he was trying to work out what exactly that was and how he could fix it.

He'd asked her a few things to work out what the situation was, and went to her room to do some investigation, with admittedly involved a fight with a clockwork droid and a little showing-off – He could not help it, especially not around young kids that probably needed to be calmed down after being told that some scary masked thing was after them.

He'd hoped that some big talk would help to convince her that the problem was taken care of, as leaving traumatized little girls in his wake was not really amongst his goals.

Not in a million years would he have expected what the "magic door" had in store for him next time – first off, a completely different room behind it, the walls painted in an intense shade of coral red. As he let his fingers line over the strings of the golden harp displayed in the room, wondering if it belonged to the little girl he'd seen here last time – musical instruments! Who could possibly resist the desire to touch them? – A young woman announced her presence by clearing her throat.

He was just asking her about where Reinette had gone, assuming her to be an older sister or something, before her mother's calls made it painfully obvious that he had been away for a little longer than he thought… And she just smiled, her mind made up in an instant.

It seemed like the little girl he just met had grown into a woman – a _stunning_ woman, to be precise – From the instant he laid eyes on her, he found it difficult to look away, which was not exactly something that happened to him all too often.

Neither her cleavage nor her elaborate pinned-up hairdo did make it any better.

Finding himself stumbling over his words, he tried to think of what to say or do before bidding his farewell – She, however, had already thought of that, perhaps long before he showed up here, and before he knew it, she was standing right in front of him, wrapping him up in her well-chosen, discreet yet straightforward words with his back against the wall.

He could not quite describe the sensation that raced through his nerves as she placed her hand upon his cheek – She knew exactly what she wanted, of that, he had no doubts left.

"So many questions, so little time."

She didn't hesitate a second.

Grabbing hold of him by placing one hand on his check and burying the other in his clothes, she looked demandingly into his eyes, the canopy's frozen azure piercing warm hazelnut brown, revealing her intentions with but a single look, split seconds before fulfilling her wordless promise as she granted him one of, if not _the_ best kiss of his life, pleasing him with the skilful, almost professional yet still authentic and passionate magic of her tongue that sent him past the stratosphere faster than he could think. Her lips were worthy of kings, emperors and gods, the experience unforgettable. Even as he staggered backwards, overwhelmed, she did not relent, simply following his steps until he was pressed against the wall, feeling honoured to return her gift as well as he could, unable to remember any of the many good reasons why he should hold back, terrifyingly aware that he had just fallen for someone he'd known for roughly ten minutes, dropping all restraints as if this was the last day of his life – She certainly knew her art, pulling away in the very instant he had managed to wrap his arms around her, leaving him still completely dazzled, concluding that maybe this time _did_ have something to tell him and especially him, some invaluable lessons about making the best of each of these precious, volatile instants, hidden amongst silk, gold and perfume.

…Did he just really hear that name, or had his head finally gotten lost amongst the clouds?

This couldn't be… could it? It wasn't supposed to be, she was supposed to belong to someone else, but then again, so was he, and his own "someone else" had just wandered of with their favourite idiot in tow… _Not again… _

One horse, half a corridor, and, to her, probably a few years later, taking a walk through a beautifully decorated garden accompanied by a friend and a lovely parasol, having a conversation in which she didn't veil her ambitions regarding the monarch by nothing but her eloquence – In a way, she certainly deserved a healthy dose of respect – he admired her ability to just… go and do what she wanted.

These two time windows weren't the only ones that showed parts of her life – she was all over that ship, sleeping, conversing, putting on her dresses, playing the harp, just… living her extraordinary life.

More often than not, he would catch himself stopping to observe the one or the other interesting scene.

The window he conveniently found Mickey and Rose standing in front of showed her first meeting with the King, where she made some skilful use of both her charms and probably her conversation skills to spark some interest.

As she adjusted her dress at the mirror that also formed part of the time window, thereby giving both him and his companions a good view of her, he could understand why it hadn't taken her all too long to enthral the king – she was mesmerized enough to distract an experienced seeker of the paranormal like him from the broken clock behind her for quite a while – in fact, she was probably the first to notice the droid ticking in the corner, and promptly ordered it to reveal itself – noticing the danger, he steppend through the time window, quickly followed by Rose, Mickey and their improvised weapons, quickly, albeit only tentatively freezing the repair android after quickly greeting Reinette.

With her help (She coped with the situation quite well – many others confronted with so many inexplicable thing happening before their eyes would have probably panicked, but she kept her composure quite well and firmly ordered the clockwork droid to spit out some answers.) they were able to figure out what had taken place on this ship, but to make sure, he'd have to try to get some more information out of her brain – With his telepathic abilities, a bit of concentration and a healthy dose of luck, he might still be able to determine what they were scanning her for, or what they meant by 'incomplete', but much like the last one, this meeting was to take a few surprising turns.

After sending his companions after the android, he asked her to trust him before gently cupping her face with his long, barely used fingers.

He mistook her initial reaction as one of discomfort and thus told her how to hide things she didn't want them to see – and she _did_ hide them, with a somewhat sly expression that spoke of the knowledge that any love or fascination lives off the little secrets that made sure the other person never got bored – If one never knew the entirety of the other, one would never be able to fully predict the actions of the other – even if one knew the simply formulas that defined the movement of things, they could still fall into a state of chaos that didn't allow for any calculation, and it was pretty much the same with a beloved person - The fun could be found where the mysteries were, hand in hand with the surprise element.

Regardless of that, it became quite clear that Reinette was actually utterly fascinated by what he was doing, deeply intrigued by his ability to move through the layers of her thoughts, feelings and memories like a gentle breeze – He would have expected fear, disapproval, embarrassment or uneasiness, never once considering the possibility of a positive reaction like the amazement she was showing right now.

He had always seen his telepathic abilities as some sort of neat survival trick, just another like his screwdriver or his knowledge in the field of biochemistry – most Time Lords were psychic, tough most required training to refine their abilities to an extent where they could be useful. He had received that training from Borusa, a man he had long since lost all respect for – In hindsight, his teacher had probably thought a solitary, rebellious youth like him would be easy to fashion into an unwitting pawn, and decided to harness his talents in case he'd turn out to be useful later. Much to the Master's amusement, he was never above average, but his frequent travels and the difficult, complex situations he had to face from time to time had proved to be an effective practice method.

He would never have described this way she did, or as much as thought of the possibility of using this… for fun, basically, and there she was, asking him how he could resist it.

Then again, he guessed that a human without telepathic abilities of her own probably saw all of this from a different angle… He never thought about it like that. To directly connect with another living soul, as she put it, was something completely impossible for most humans… they could never truly feel what another of them felt, and, if he remembered correctly, many philosophers thought this to be the source of all elementary loneliness – well, he felt sorry to disappoint the philosophers, but it was still very much possible to feel alone if one had abilities like that … he should be proof of that, if there was any.

"Oh, such a lonely childhood…!"

At first, he thought to have unwillingly stirred up some old memories as he had finally worked out what the droids were after, but this was one of the rare instances where the truth turned out to be more fascinating than the assumptions preceding its discovery, for she had thought of yet another thing that would never have occurred to him – while he had told her how to keep her own secrets safely locked away behind closed doors, his very own door had been left wide open… and while she did not have the power to establish such a link by herself, that fast, amazing mind of hers worked fast to make the best of its lone opportunity to leave the confines of her mortal, if beautiful shell, to wander amongst the unprotected, exposed expanse of his mind where nothing prevented his essence from spilling into hers.

Her mind was every bit as demanding as her lips had been, wishing to know of something as simple as the childhood of the man who had enchanted hers, not of his world or his power, but of his _childhood_, of him as a person, of what was at the bottom of his abysmal mindscape and what she found where these images of a young boys with the eyes of a lone fighter, knowing very well how it felt to be the only one left outside in the cold, roaming through a mansion and a mountain that were full of space and wonders, yet mostly barren of any sort of company, and of how that feeling had never ready subsided even after he had exchanged that place for the universe.

"How can you bear it?"

He could not.

Beauty was an inherently bittersweet thing; both joy and sadness were always laced with tiny aftertastes of each other.

There were treasures… that could burn one from within if there was no one to share them with. One could, however, forget about the bitter part with someone by one's side – The secret hiding places on that mountain had lost the melancholy air that hung above them after he'd shown them to the Master, for the universe, he had Mickey and Rose, and for the troubles inside his mind – well, these were something the woman in front of him had just taken care of.

He stared at her, dumbstruck at the seemingly impossible, yet shockingly easy thing she had just done, hastily removing his hands and stepping backwards, as if he had accidentally touched her in an improper way, tough it had actually been her who had touched him deep inside where no hand could reach.

"Dance with me." She insisted, her eyes making it very clear that she also meant the _other_ sense of these words, her tone of voice more than of a challenge than one of a question.

A question would have implied that she would accept a no.

She did not tell him just how much of the secrets and black days of his early life she had seen, just to show him that she kept as many secrets as he did – some of these, however, were to be revealed to him this night, for what she had seen was enough for her to make him feel as if this was a direct continuation of his youth in which he was to be compensated for many of the experiences he missed out on as a young man, especially since he felt as uncertain as he would have back then as she lead him to where the festivities were to take place.

Nevertheless, his insecurity did not last as he found himself in the middle of the solemnity, dancing and smiling like everyone else did, letting the cascading melodies guide his steps as if tomorrow was the day where all clocks would stop and the sky would cave in, feeling a bit like Doctor Faustus in that scene where he had stepped onto the marketplace.

In no time, he was introducing the partying noblemen to the advantages of bananas, using whatever he could find in the depths of his pockets as music instruments or for party tricks, and just generally having a great time under her very satisfied eyes.

His majesty was also shooting them looks – for someone who could practically have anyone he wanted, but still had an ego to satisfy, there could probably be no worthier target than the woman who had appeared alongside the mysterious, oddly dressed stranger, as he probably expected her to be the hardest to conquer. He'd probably already made his mind up about whom he'd be romancing at the _next_ party – which was probably very good since it meant that history would play out as it was supposed to – but on this particular night, her eyes rested solely on one single man.

After the music had died down and the rooms had emptied themselves, he gave himself to her, in all his entirety.

Like a gentle breeze in the midst of golden autumn taking brightly coloured leaves with them, her fingers slid across his skin, as if they were softly asking a million questions without her saying a thing. He answered by linking their minds together so that each of them could feel what the other felt, allowing them to ascertain themselves of the pleasure they were providing each other as well as for their own feelings to be intensified by their reflection found in the other's, likewise fuelling their passion tough the immediate exchange of wishes, desires and expressions of gratitude in no time at all.

They were like two opposing mirrors creating a very believable illusion of infinity and endlessness that lasted until this world reminded them that as long as it existed with all of its duties and truths, it would make sure that all good things came to an end.

Every single thing around him was reminding him of that, last but not least the clockwork droids who had finally found the right time window.

The situation looked grim - they had all gathered to collect her head, and he had no way to intercept them – at least not without trapping himself on the other side.

He could hear her, not losing her composure for a second, defiantly staring back into the face of death, convinced that he would come.

There was no other way.

He would not disappoint her, regardless of the high price he would have to pay – As for his companions, he'd have about three thousand years to arrange for someone to pick them up.

If he cut down on sweets, he might even live to see them once more.

So or so, he had made his decision.

Descending like a knight in shining armour on a literal white horse, he smashed the time window into countless little pieces, smiling as Reinette failed to keep her expression in check, unable to keep herself from looking flabbergasted.

And that was all it took for all doors to close behind him and his enemies, one smashed mirror.

As he stared through the window before him, feeling almost bereft, he became painfully aware that everything up there was now beyond his reach and would probably stay that way for a very, very long time. He was trapped… but that was okay.

He had been ready to give his life for complete strangers on so often he'd long since lost count – giving up his freedom for someone he loved was an exceptional offer compared to that. At least he wasn't alone.

She was still at his side, contemplating the milky way with him, sharing a few of her thoughts about the stars, his sacrifice and that strange story of theirs.

As his frown gave way to a few shy smiles, he even found himself trying to get used to the life he would be leading from now on, painfully aware of how foreign the most elementary basics of a normal life had become to him.

But she knew that he did not belong here, that a being like him should not be trapped here, as little as an angel should have its wings clipped, or a unicorn should have its horn broken.

As much as she had probably wished for him to stay with her, she put his happiness before her own, just like he had done, asking him to hold her hand for one last time as she lead him before the last open door.

Like she had said before, a door once opened may be stepped through in either direction – this fireplace was the portal he'd used to step into her life, and now, it would become the gate through which he'd leave it, ironically thanks to her hopes for him to return.

The last, faint "No…!" she sent after him as he left her world made the smile on his face fade into nothingness and left him with a cold, heavy feeling in his chest which he did not listen to as he tried to light her face up by promising her the stars.

A promise that had never been meant to be fulfilled.

He was too late.

When he stepped through the time window for the final time, all that awaited him was the unending deluge the mournful skies had unleashed upon the palace.

She had been waiting in vain, and while she almost casually addressed him as "my love" in her writing, he had missed all the chances to do the same before he even knew there were any.

It was over, that ridiculously short, incredibly eventful time they had shared… but they had made the best out of it, hadn't they?

Yes.

His frozen expression finally shattering into a sad smile, he decided to go looking for Rose and Mickey. He did not know how soon these two would fade from his life, but he did not want them to waste any of the precious seconds they had left with getting lost in the corridors – because once the clocks had ticked those seconds away, he would never get them back.

* * *

So, that's it. I hoped you like it! I'll do my best to finish the next chapter as quickly as possible: 10:[The Bad Joke]. As you might have guessed, it will adress the lovely Miss Joan Redfern.


	10. 10: The Bad Joke

Disclaimer: Doctor who is still owned by the BBC.

* * *

10: [The Bad Joke]

There were probably very few intelligent beings in this universe who hadn't ever pondered the meaning of identity – What is your "self", what constitutes and shapes it, and how strongly so? What makes you "you", and what aspects of your life could be changed without turning you into someone else…?

Could you still be considered yourself – and therefore alive – with a completely different face, altered quirks and speech patterns, as well as a noticeably different temperament, but retained your memories? Would you still be the same person if you had grown up under vastly different circumstances, if you had been born to different parents, lived in a different place or a different time, or even on a whole other world?

These were questions for _philosophers_ to answer – Too bad that these philosophers did not tend to be available whenever ghastly circumstances turned these hypothetic deliberations into his very palpable, very concrete, yet anything but escapable, personal reality.

When he came here, all he wanted to do was to save his own life… self-preservation, the simplest and oldest motivation of them all, ingrained into every form of life.

When he left, he found it hard to believe the notion that he might have such simple emotions left in him.

It was not that the tables turned and switched the ever-so-temporary definitions of predator and prey around, nor was it the desperate revenge of an anguished heart whose personal lines had all been crossed.

The punishment that befell them was absolute, eternal, ironic and executed without the slightest flinch or any chance for them to fight back.

It was judgement, like a god's.

That's what it must have looked like to them.

To them, to Martha, and to _her_.

He knew that's what it would look like, and he already knew how she would decide.

That's the sort of person she was, righteous to the core and ten thousand times better than him. That's why he fell for her.

He knew she would not be able to see anything but the eldritch entity he had become, the much-feared cosmic horror, the convolutes, horrifying story that was only fascinating to hear or read about because it wasn't real, because they had no consequences.

Now that she had seen his true self, there was no need for her to look for it, even if his "true self" had been what she was seeing all along, his self, his soul, his essence…

If that essence truly _is_ what remains when the social role and the circumstances of life are changed or removed, that is.

Maybe that's really what he would have been like if he had been born and raised here, on this world, in this time, as a human. Certainly a product of his time, like everyone else was (As jarring as his condescending treatment of Martha looked to him in hindsight, it probably would have been considered fair for its day, and anything beyond that might have arisen suspicion – Still, he spent years fighting people like that… ), not knowing more than someone in that position may have seen and heard, but still him, still somewhat absent-minded, still subtly encouraging those around him to make the best of themselves, still being the one to act quickly in the face of danger… and still attracted to more or less blonde, strong-willed, smart women who had that air of being trapped in the wrong place about them. It was a dark blonde in this case, but otherwise, just his type.

Of course, he hadn't thought of something like this happening, he never did.

He always thought of everything but the obvious.

And at this point, he didn't _want_ to think about such things… The wound that Rose had left had still been fresh, and he'd still doubted that he would ever love again.

That he still recalled her name after having his memory wiped was probably the best proof of the hole he had left… but while his soul was still tormented by Illusions of her image as he tossed and turned in violent dreams, his mind had not known that she, or, for that matter, the cold feeling her face left as it disintegrated into dawn, was real…

Ironically, those dreams hadn't been the only Illusions at work and, in a way, had contained more truth than the day-to-day life he led in the waking world, when he smiled at the widow who shared a loneliness he didn't know he did have, debating with her, impressing her, mesmerising her, mending her heart, treating her like a woman.

Not as wife or widow, a nurse or a matron, but as a simple woman. Just as herself and only herself, seeing her for what she was. Making her feel desired and beautiful again, after she thought she'd never feel this way again.

In the end, he had left her hometown devastated and bestowed more heartbreak on her… He couldn't blame her for thinking this was nothing more than the bad joke of a callous deity, for something like him to descend and to make her feel special when she was just a random short-lived ape he had met by chance, to see what it's like to be normal for his own entertainment, to drag dozens down with him, just to save his own skin, something he had often berated others for… She couldn't blame her for thinking him a coward, because he was one.

How could he possibly explain? What right did he have to ask anything of her?

He had just been inconsiderate… or maybe that was just the sort of existence he lead, the reason why Tegan left him, why the Pandorica was prepared for him, and why Amy did not get to raise her daughter… He kept wishing for a life he was never meant to have and dragging others down his maelstrom.

Maybe that's what he was. A monster.

One cowardly enough to show her his fond memories of what could have been, of a life he could never give her, a lie she would immediately recognize as such.

But even if it was all a lie, in the end, his feelings were real.

That is why he raged at the sheer unfairness of it all, resigning himself to being the monster she saw him as, unleashing all his pain, all his power and all his frustration at a few beings whose motivations hadn't been that different from his own.

So he left, knowing himself enough to know that he would have the audacity to continue on his path, hating himself for not just breaking like he should.

He soldiered on, falling, but not crashing, burning, but not charring, bleeding, but not dying,

like a wounded god.

* * *

So that's it! A little short, but I think it's OK. The next one, 11: [Innocence] will feauture the impossibly cute, but unfortunate Astrid Peth.


	11. 11: Innocence

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor who and that's probably for the better.

* * *

11: [Innocence]

Most people lose it over time.

The very ability to be in awe like that.

It almost made him feel guilty, like he was doing that simple street a deep injustice because his eyes weren't widening like hers, because there wasn't such a mass of excitement spreading through all of his frame, bone by bone, limb by limb, as if it was on the verge of sending her spinning.

Had he ever done that when he came here?

He should have, because it was another world and he had always dreamed of other worlds, which was why he had left in the first place; But he had also been a refugee, cut off everything he knew, and despite everything still quite a product of the society he fled from, forced to make do with scraps for spare parts and the local cuisine for chemical supplies, a constantly swelling, accumulated frustration that had kept him from revelling in the moment his dreams come true, barely recalling anything special about the instant he set foot on this planet; He had not known that he would find himself here, eternities later, having, for the first time in decades, stood on this ground at the side of someone who was a stranger to it. Sure, Jack hadn't been from this time, but he was still human and very much a fan of the past; there is a difference in seeing something out of history book and being overtaken by the marvel of a whole new world.

Seeing her react like that, seeing others who saw this world from the outside made him realize just how much less of a stranger he had become.

That warmth that had spread within him then, in the heat of the ruined corridors, was perhaps the closest he would ever come to experience the feeling of being home.

He hadn't seen it anymore, the simple truth of the meaning that this place held for him, just how lucky he was to be able to stand on this suspiciously empty street with its little shops and the fresh, cool scent of the Terran night.

He had needed her to make it visible.

Her innocence, her openness, her ability to give it all a chance, take nothing for granted and see it all as it was without any bias clouding her sight.

Yes, most people lost it over time, this light, the will, and sometimes even the ability to see it. Sometimes he felt like he was losing it, too. As someone who had always known the darkness ever since he was a boy, he had learned to detect even the tiniest silver of its presence, but more and more often, he found himself unable to find it and wondering whether it had drifted too far away from him this time… or whether he had just gone blind.

The very idea of losing that spark terrified him beyond words; It was all that was good in this world, all that could save it, and him as well.

Innocence like hers.

Now, he certainly didn't mean that embellished distillation of ignorance that some romanticists confused with innocence; As a man of reason and knowledge, he heeded the principle that one was never better off as a fool.

Instead, the kind of innocence he referred to was something that could be considered a _prerequisite _for the pursuit of wisdom or knowledge – Something that, without a doubt, had to be indescribably precious if it caused her to beam witch such gratitude and exaltation after having seen what was just a normal street to him after spending years dreaming of such an opportunity; it wouldn't even have occurred to her in the slightest to be disappointed at the fact that what she got to see was just a street, or that their trip was cut short; No, she valued every little thing, took in every minuscule detail, basked in the light of street lights with foreign isotopic signatures and stars that were arranged in different constellations, as if the hand of some bored god had taken the edges of the canopy and shaken up its contents.

And as she speaks her words of awe, her eyes shining as if the afterimages of these brand new constellations still visible on her cornea, he feels his own wishes renewed as he finds them anew, reflected within her, as if someone had taken a blindfold of his eyes and shone a light on all the things his personal burdens sometimes obscure from him.

He feels it burning anew, that flame, that curiosity, that light he thought was lost, and the knowledge that he had, if anything else, lived his dreams, and as he contemplates showing them to her, the same things that sometimes weigh heavy on his shoulders feel like a vast heirloom, a boundless treasure, a dream to share, and he feels again why he loves his life, because it gives him the freedom to make this very dream they shared come true, and he is glad to be there because it means he met her.

She was just a simple waitress, probably unable to afford the very uniform she had been put in like some sort of Barbie doll to be part of the decoration with a year's worth of her wages, only here to do her job and longingly look after these super-rich people many of which treated her no better than cat litter as they ordered her around and went off to explore the new worlds she had wanted to touch, and yet, her reactions had convinced him that she was the one who deserved to be here most of all.

Initially, he had approached her because she made the impression that she could use someone being nice to her to brighten her day, but soon, he believed to have stumbled upon the next person to follow in the line of those who were destined to be at his side.

To these silly archaeologists who would try to chronicle the events of their voyage, it would probably be a mystery what would draw a simple, young, inexperienced poor waitress and an ancient cosmic vagabond like him together, but to them, it was fairly obvious by the time he had finished a sentence that she might not have been able to complete for lack of the eloquence that came with education or the repertoire of expressions and comparisons that came with experience, but still described the exact feelings that stirred in both their souls.

The dream of standing beneath another sky, spreading their arms out to feel the warmth of an alien sun.

Smiling at the less-than-accurate descriptions of the Earth, he became aware that he had been far too concerned with lamenting that what he saw when he looked up was not nectarine-coloured but blue, that he had almost forgotten that it was azure and not orange.

He knew that she would appreciate it, if he took her hand and led her there, pointing at the borderless blue, explaining to her how its particular came from the particles of the atmosphere bending the light, revelling in her excitement and disbelief as if it was his own, as if he were seeing it for the same time.

She could not yet describe these things they both lusted after, but he knew the best remedy for that… when he was a child, he had thought this world a huge and frightening place, scared of mythological horrors, the emptiness of his mansion and most of all of these formless, invisible bonds between the other children that he couldn't seem to understand. Now, that he had understood how it worked, it all came easy and the jumbled mess that others seemed to call "the world" for the lack of another world resolved itself into large structures and deep truths, like complex equations as they were being simplified.

She would blossom into something great once she understood it, too, maybe not all of it, but as much as he could show her as they ran through the veins of history…

He absorbed the sight of her appreciation and multiplied it with the impressiveness of other wonders of this and many other worlds, picturing how much she would love all that, how grateful she would be, how happy it would make her, how she would enjoy all these things he had enjoyed before, and how they both would marvel at the mysteries they still had to uncover, hand in hand, their faces alight with overwhelming fascination.

If she had kept smiling at him like that, he might have come to hope that there was some good in his continued existence and that it might not be that bad that his kind lived so long… as long as it took him to completely tire of it all and end his aimless journey with his own hands.

Perhaps that day wasn't quite so far ahead, or perhaps it had come and gone a long, long time ago, and he was just too much of a coward to admit that he had outstayed his welcome on this world…

None of his fantasies of what could have been retain any of their promising radiance when he looks back on them; that which dimmed them was the knowledge of how exactly that turned out, as their time together was cut short much like their brief visit to Earth.

Still, just like would one day relate it to a certain redhead, while life brought both good and bad things with it, neither of those cancelled the others out.

The rescue of an entire planet could not soften the loss of a few friends and a loved one, but neither did the pain and the loss he felt taint the genuineness of the good times that had preceded them;

At the time, he had been devastated at his inability to save her, but revisiting those memories after a long time, he _did_ see that he made it possible for her to see at least one other world and give her heart away at least once before she died.

Yet, there is always that small, accusing voice in the back of his skull telling him that he's just trying to convince himself, and even when it's not taking physical form and teleporting itself around just to annoy him with a twisted version of his own sense of humor, that final speech of prosecution keeps eternally ringing in his ears, acidly reminding him that she went after him, that she entered that blasted fork truck for his sake.

Sure, she did it all of her own free will, making a firm choice, well aware of its consequences… but it wouldn't have happened if she hadn't met him.

Should he not have been here at all…? Would the planet have been saved without him?

Should he not have been gentle to her, should he not have offered her to make her dreams come true when it was so easy for him? If that doomed her, what should he have done to save her? Should he not have shown her the interest she deserved, should he have dropped the funny remarks, or the charming smile? Should he not have tried to reassure her and try to make her feel safe, did he make her believe that he knew it all and could be relied upon?

After a tragic events or a less-than satisfying conversation, you always wound of thinking of things you could have done or said later that you didn't think of earlier, questioning your own questions for days and hours, discarding convoluted thought constructs that wouldn't have helped you anyway and growing desperate contemplating solutions you didn't think of at the time…

If he had only… been able to grab her hand, to get hold of her some time… if he had told her to jump out of her vehicle, would she have been able to make it out in time?

It seemed so absurd… He was old and rotten, she was young, innocent, and had just gotten started at really _living_ her life, so why was it her who was dead?

Why was she rewarded with plummeting into the ship's engines, when she had done her best to comfort and look after the rest of their dwindling party (including him), while people like that insensitive, selfish financier who'd done nothing but to demoralize everyone else got to live?

It certainly wasn't anything someone could choose, nor was he claiming that his personal likes and dislikes were the measuring tape by which the rest of the universe was to be judged.

It wasn't like that, not really.

It was just a lonely old man exaggerating a bit as he raged at the heavens in the process of lamenting that life is unfair, something he should have stopped being upset about a very long time ago.

It almost scared him when he found himself considering that he should finally, after all these years (It felt like less and less of a stretch to say "Almost a millennium") grow up and accept that he couldn't fix it, just like he couldn't fix her.

It should have been clear that she would follow after him, at very least after her little "parting gift" that probably _wouldn't_ have surprised anyone other than him, the rather cute way in which the petite, golden-haired woman had bridged their almost comical difference in height to uh, follow an old tradition.

(Of course, it was her taking the initiative. He couldn't do such things without feeling like he had to apologize afterwards. Not anymore.)

He should have known that she would not let him deal with it all on his own – something he was admittedly hadn't been capable of, not this time and not at any other time.

But that was beside the point.

Truth be told, he was rather ambivalent about his own fate, but that was nothing but a piece of trivia he couldn't care less about in the face of her _death_.

Just as he had decided that just about enough of these people's lived had been wrested from his grasp, destiny chose to see that as a taunt.

In that translucent instant of truth, where she had looked into his eyes one last time, he had understood that she had resigned herself to her fate.

It was a fast, soundless farewell that left no room for these three words or any words at all, over before he had time to react with anything besides devastation and short lived denial, the latter of which was extinguished fast enough when she fell into the fireball below her, like the jaws of hell itself had spontaneously opened to swallow her as she reached for a hand that would never make it in time as the metres spread out between them in a matter of seconds.

All these lives, nearly everyone on this ship… wasted.

For a reason like _that_.

He didn't know if she had known that her desperate action would reset the robots' command chain, but she _had_ effectively reduced all their problems into thin air.

Well, it were _his_ problems now, because there wasn't really a "them" anymore;

Solemn, drained, yet strangely regal, more his own ghost than anything else, he commanded the robots to escort him to the bridge.

The planet is saved, but his so called "success" is dry and shallow – and yet, he just cannot give up yet, not just her, others, good people, brave people.

He just wants to… keep that feeling of powerless from consuming him from the inside, which is probably just as selfish as it sounds – it's not like he was able to save her.

So he stands there, having grown weary of it all, one step closer to beginning to accept that the free fall that inevitably followed when all was lost and you found yourself all alone was just where he belonged.

It's a cruel thing, another of these freaks of technology. To be forced to practically see her before him, and yet, at the same time, being forced to accept that she was beyond saving by this very same fading image.

The faint echo of her voice sounds incredibly lost, she's calling for him, but his words don't seem to reach her in a way that would produce any effect; Locked between being and nothingness and unable to find her way to either side.

He has no right to keep her in this state any longer.

So, he lets go.

There's only one proper thing left to do, anyway.

He wraps his apology into a farewell kiss because the odds of her noticing that are ever so slightly higher than they would be if he tried talking to her, and scatters her remains into the vacuum so that she could become part of the cosmos she wanted to see, even if it was only in death.

Had he been in her place, his actions probably wouldn't have been any different from hers.

And he would have been content.

But her…?

He couldn't exactly ask her anymore, and as well as they might have connected, they did not have much time to do so.

Of course, somewhere in a corner of his being, he was able to tell that she made her own decisions, that she would be grateful to at least have been given that one chance to live her dreams, and that she wouldn't have traded it for anything else in the world.

He was a self-hating mess, not out-of touch with reality.

Not that this knowledge made the doubts fade away.

It actually made them worse, knowing that she had willingly marched to her death, that he was to blame for that…

Still, she would have appreciated the little she got…

And actually, so did he.

He appreciated the little time they had… and he, too, was grateful for the chance he had been given, no matter how much pain lay ahead on the path he had chosen.

He just wished that he'd had the opportunity to tell her that.

Of course, he didn't, and this is perhaps what he regrets the most.

* * *

Ah, poor little Astrid :( Such a cutie, but of course, they couldn't afford to hire a proper pop star for an entire series, so she had to die. Still can't believe it's the same person who also makes these music videos where she's barely wearing anything. She really CAN act... Oh, and I strongly suspect that the number of hours RTD used to spend wondering about how to make a given character suffer and/or die in the most tragic way ever is directly proportional to their cuteness. Which probably explains why poor Ten could never catch a break. Or maybe they just wanted to make good use of DT's incredible talent at making his face look like a suitable picture for a wikipedia article on "desperation". Ah, good old DT. You get quite nostalgic rewatching stuff.

In any case, I'll finish my rambling by telling you that the next chapter will be called [Concord] and will adress the wonderful Lady Christina de Souza. This might sound downright blasphemous to some, but Ten/Christina has always been my favourite pairing involving the Tenth Doctor. Technically, River appears before her, but I'm intentionally saving her for last since her story is still ongoing.


End file.
